On Sep 4, 8:24 am, "
wrote:
My wife and I have had a 30 year old swing keel Catalina 22 for five
years.We just spent four weeks sailing it from Port Townsend WA, where
we live, to Princess Louisa Inlet. The boat handled everything fine,
but we are beginning to think we want something a bit bigger if we are
going to do more of the same and perhaps go further north.

We have been so pleased with the C22 that we are starting to look for
a C27 in the $10,000-12,000 range. However I recall reading somewhere
that the old C27s didn't sail too well and the Catalina 270,
introduced in 1994, was a big improvement - though that is probably
outside our price range.

We need a boat with headroom around 6 ft, and easily singlehanded as I
can't always persuade the first mate to come.

Does anyone have any comments on the C27, or alternative boats of this
size ?

Thanks in advance

Richard Isherwood


The Catalina 27 does indeed sail VERY well (the 30, not so much...).
It's a great value for the money, and there's little weather in
Georgia Strait that they can't handle.

I'm looking in the same market (I ruled out the Cat 27 cuz, well, I've
had a 36 for 17 yrs and want something different). I'm looking at Cal
27s (popular in the US) and Crown 28s (popular in Vancouver). They
both are more suited to heavy weather than the Catalina, but cost a
bit more (depending on condition).

Unfortunately, whatever financial disaster befell the sailing industry
in the 80s and wiped out so many mfrs (Cal, Islander, Mirage...) also
for some reason made the under-30 boats unpopular: everyone wanted
over 30. So earlier 25-29ft boats that were often the "flagship" of
the fleet became the "scaled-down" or "entry-level" boats. So, the
more modern small boats had 32 ft of stuff crammed into 28ft of space
(look at how big the door is on the Hunter 28 head, and imagine
yourself trying to get through it in full heavy-weather gear!)
Conclusion: get an older boat in good shape rather than looking at
newer ones.

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org