"jds" wrote:
hi all.looked at a very nice cal 2-27 last week. one owner since new. all
records of anything ever done to the boat, and very anal about maintenence.
boat is in excellent condition for it age and very good for any age.
question: is this boat tough enough for extended coastal cruising down the
pacific coast , mexico and central america?? possibly very limited offshore
to various california islands??


Depends on how much you want to baby it. It's not such a
good design IMHO for that, a bit on the smallish side. My
concern would be that once you load it down with the load of
supplies you'll need, the stability & performance will be
poor & the stress on rig & hull in excess of it's design
parameters.

Wayne.B wrote:
Build quality is a bit on the light side. Problem areas to be on the
look out for are hull tabbings for bulheads and reinforcements, as
well as chainplates. These issues can become paricularly evident if
you spend time beating to windward in heavy seas.


That's part of what I meant by "babying it." It's not a boat
that's built for weeks on end of hard sailing, not because
it's a Cal specifically but because none of the
mass-produced mid-size racer-cruisers are.

OTOH it's a boat that sails well (in particular a much
better windward ability than heavier cruiser which will be
proclaimed as 'more suitable' by some) and if equipped &
provisioned craftily, and the cruise was planned
intelligently, could be a big success.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King