On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 14:59:12 GMT, "Daniel E. Best"
wrote:

Barry,
It's hard to go wrong with that boat. Here's a photo of the one we used
ot have as we crossed the Mexican border on the '99 Ha Ha
http://rangerbest.home.comcast.net/sc-600-400.JPG

Ours had a tiller, which if you can find one, I would reccommend as it
really opens up the cockpit and auto-steers well with just an
inexpensive tiller pilot.
Ours had end boom sheeting. I would reccommend mid boom sheeting, but it
wasn't important enough to make it to the top of the project list while
we had ours.
It makes a great day sailor and a good coastal cruiser. The longest
trip we ever did entailed living on the boat non-stop for two months
from SF Bay down around the tip of Baja and up into the Sea Of Cortez.
Had a great time, but it was "cozy" with 4-5 people aboard (dropped one
off at Cabo San Lucas) for this long.


Pluses:
- A very successful, well tested design made for 25 years or something
like that.
- An active listserver on sailnet with hundreds of members (a great
resource).
- The A4 has it's own listserver on sailnet.
- Very easy to sail, After running the lines aft, I used to single hand
ours easily.
- Reasonable performance.
- Easy to resell when the time comes.
- Very little exposed wood means easy maintainence.
- A4 is easy to understand and work on (kinda like a 60's era VW engine).
- Can be trimmed so the helm is balanced and very light even in high winds.
- Turns on a dime.
- Great cockpit for entertaining.

Negatives:
- V-berth is kinda narrow at the pointy end when two are sleeping in it.
- Minimal fuel and water tankage for really long trips.
- Minimal storage for really long trips.

Hope this helps - Dan

This guy knows his stuff: the Catalina 30 is a top Great Lakes/coastal
boat, although with that giant companionway I wouldn't run before
heavy weather. Lots of them on the Great Lakes also race at a PHRF of
around 190-200, I think. One comment on the A4: go for freshwater
cooling. Unless the seawater was flushed from the block occasionally,
strainers employed and the proper 140 F thermostat used, there is
likely salt precipitates in the cooling passages. A Marsolve flush
followed by the installation of fresh water cooling and a higher temp
thermostat will keep that A4 happy.

Of course, in the Great Lakes, most A4 users already have raw water
(direct lake water) cooling and the hotter T-stat (higher cooling
temps make for better combustion as long as it's below 190-200F). So
you could just do a through soak and rinse of the passages, get the
goo out, and continue to cool via a thru-hull.

R.