On Jan 13, 1:09 am, Alan Gomes wrote:
druid wrote:
On Jan 10, 1:48 pm, Alan Gomes wrote:
druid wrote:
On Jan 10, 8:59 am, wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:50:30 -0800 (PST), "

snip


A few case-in-points: the V-berth in my Catalina 36 was 1/4"
fibreglass - on my Cal 25 it was 3/4" ply with fg over. The mast-step
on my Crown 28 is 6" laminated hardwood (teak?) 4 ft long
athwartships. On the Catalina it was a 6" x 6" chunk of fg. The
Catalina (even the 36) had quite a bit of chopper-gun fg in the
lockers, etc. - the Crown is all woven hand-laid fg.


Dear "Druid,"

Thanks for your observations. And, as I said, I do like Cal boats,
especially the way they sail. Lapworth is probably my favorite designer.
But considering the Cal/Catalina comparison, the Cal boats are not
uniformly better.

Cal used a mild steel beam that runs athwartships to support the
compression of the mast.

I'm aware of that beam, and was the reason I didn't look at Cal 29's.
On the Crown 28, it's a huge laminated-wood beam, as I said. No rust
(and no rot).

Comparing overall contruction, I put Catalinas, Odays, Newports,
Sunstars, Hunters, etc. in pretty much "the same boat", but Cals go
one level higher, similar to Columbia or Grampian (but faster! ).
I've been told there are other boats with MUCH better design
standards, but I've never seen one. Strangely, the Cals do seem to
have ONE design flaw, just so that people can point at it and say
"See? It's a crappy boat!". For the Cal-29, it's that stupid steel
beam. For the Crown, somebody moved the mast 1ft back after they
designed the interior, so there's a compression post just aft of the
main bulkhead (Not as bad as the Goofy Solution Islander did!). And so
on...

But I stand by my impression that most Cals and Crowns are still in
pretty good shape compared to Catalinas/Odays/Newports from the 70s.
And that includes the ones that have been cruised to Hawaii and back.

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org