Capt. Rob wrote:
The most common complaint about the Catalina 27 and 30 for bigger
weather is the oversized companionway hatch.

A good point and something shared by most of the coastal cruiser
production boats. Though we never got pooped in the Catalina, there
were a couple of times we secured the lower 2 hatch boards in place
"just in case".

The heaviest weather we ever sailed it in was one night while crossing
the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos over on the mainland side. We were told
they were measuring 40+ knots in the protected harbor and I can vouch
for the fact that it was blowing like snot out on the Sea. Perhaps my
most vivid memory from that night was the spray blowing off the tops of
the waves hitting the back of the hood of my foulies and sounding like
firecrackers going off right behind my ears. We had the wind and waves
a little forward of the beam, a triple reefed main and just a scrap of
jib rolled out. The boat (and us) came through it like a champ. About
dawn, the wind died as though someone threw a switch somewhere and we
wound up motoring into San Carlos's beautiful harbor.

Your 35s5 looks like a fun boat. We just completed a 2 year tour of the
Pacific (Mex. Central America, Ecuador, Galapagos, Fr. Poly., Tonga,
Hawaii and back to Calif.) 2 weeks ago in our Tayana. I'm way overdue
updating the photo site, but if you're interested, check out
http://triciajean192.home.comcast.net. The photo of us underway at the
top of the site was taken off the coast of Guatemala by our friends
Frank & Shirley on Windsong, an Islander Freeport (38', I think) that
also had that oversize companionway hatch that so many boats have. They
had been wandering around Baja, the Mexican mainland and Central America
for several years when we met them. The last email I received from them,
that had gone through the Panama Canal and were going to be heading for
the Carribean.