I would suggest you stick to the standard mast. My cat used to have control
problems when you had too much sail up during strong winds, 2 feet more will
only make it worse.
My father recently redid the boat after we lost our mast a few years back.
Since we sail in the caribean where the winds tend to be in the 15-30 knot
area we decided to go with a super-strong rigging. its a normal mast with
one size bigger than the regular cat for all the rigging. Its heavy but its
strong. I dont know if they changed the design after our boat was built but
I remember that my parents had to alter the inside a bit to reinforce the
place where the rigging enters the deck. After about 14 years of owning the
boat(and other owners before it) we lost the mast due to a failed bolt in
one of the bases for the rigging, aparently it just broke and since its only
one bolt it came off and off went the mast, we decided to change that too
and add 2 instead of 1. I am very happy with it, its a small boat but it can
take a real punch, we have sailed it in all kinds of weather and raced it
hard(we are the long time victors of the cruising class in cartagena,
colombia).

PS. Did I mention that our boat is one of the first build? Its like # 212 or
112, cant remeber which, but its amongs those numbers :P

"Denis Marier" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the information.
I sail inland in the Saint John River systems, the Bay of Fundy and
coastal
New Brunswick, Maine and Nova Scotia.
On the coast the wind is more regular than inland. On the Kennebecassis
River and Grand Lake the wind can be steady than all of a sudden your
boat
is listing at 30 degrees plus. Sometime the direction and velocity of the
wind vary a lot during a day. At time black clouds and wind coming
downhill
produce an irregular behavior. As you said the geometric center of the
boat
has to be correct. I suspect that the Catalina 30 equipped with the tall
mast have the same keel (5'3") configuration as the regular mast. Most of
the Catalina 30 equipped with the tall mast (2 feet more) have the
regular
keel. Other tall rigs have the shortest wing keel.



"rhys" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 22:35:19 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

I wonder if it does make a difference to have a Catalina 30 with a tall
or
regular mast.
Is the tall mast suited for coastal cruising?

Sure, it makes a difference in sail area, center of effort and how
much grunting happens at launch time G.

All things being equal, a taller rig with an accompanying slight
change in ballast will allow better light air performance (which could
mean lake or coastal depending on your location), and will put more
sail (marginally) in that air which doesn't want to come down to deck
level, which I associate with sailing close to warmed land/cities in
the summer months.

If you intend to race, the taller rig is definitely desirable. If you
intend to cruise, not so much.

R.