Catalina 22

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by leadbelly

I am thinking of buying a Catalina 22. Any thoughts or experience would appreciated

As a pocket cruiser or primarily as a day sailer?

[Gary Matthesen]

Great starter boat. With the swing keel, you run aground, crank up a bit and sail away better informed. As a newly wed with no money we trailered for4 years, stored in back yard and raised the mast ourselves. Made me fiercely independent in every boat I have had, and frugal. Now a Cat 36.
Mast on deck, shrouds in place, backstay attached, add a rope length to the jib halyard. I would lift the mast as high as I could from the stern, mast foot in deck plate, second guy far forward had a good angle to easily pull it upright. Once vertical I could attach the forestay. Easy peasy and cheap!
Buy it, enjoy it, and sell up for bigger.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by OldManMirage

My 1st thought is - are you going to keep her in the water or trailer her ?

Because raising and lowering the mast is not so easy on a boat that size. If doing it manually you'll need a system of some sort and some help.

There is a third option, which is keeping it on a trailer, rigged, in a yard with a ramp. Not easy to find one that allows this, but could be worth the effort, especially if you can find one where you want to sail. This has several advantages, faster launching, much lower costs than a slip, & no need for antifoul painting and bottom cleaning. This works great for me. 40 min drive to marina, but only takes me about 10-15 minutes from arriving at the marina until i have re-parked the car and trailer, and start up the motor. And no launch fees, since that is included and I do winter storage at the same place.
OMM is exactly right - raising that mast is "not so easy". Yes, you can do it alone with the right rigging contraption, but that dang mast is heavy. And doing the tensioning, it all takes time. Can make the difference between wanting to go out or not. And, no trailering on the roads is a plus too.

[BrianInBoston]

If you want to spend some quality time on a Catalina 22 to see if it's what you want, check out Key Lime Sailing Club in Key Largo FL. They have a bunch of them, and if you rent a cottage for a week and have some demonstrable sailing experience, you get a boat of your own the whole week to daysail around Buttonwood Sound on the Everglades side of the Keys. I did this early-on in my sailing journey soon after an ASA 103 class and it was easy and fun. Ours was a pop-top model that really opened up the interior at anchor. Had the feel of a bigger boat for sure.

[sinnerman]

As they say, the smaller the boat the more the fun.

Catalina Direct sells most of the parts needed to maintain/restore Catalinas. There is a ton of blog info out there on the Cats as well....

Another good 22 foot would also be the J22. I wish I had one as a 2nd boat. They grab onto any small puff of wind and take off flying. They are a lot of fun..

cheers

[rossdv8]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

The OP is from a hurricane prone area. How would one deal with a trailer boat on a trailer?

2. Anchor trailer to earth. Strap boat very carefully to trailer, or to ground anchors of some kind.

5. Pray a lot.
Ann

Having had two 26 footers that were on moorings, destroyed by cyclones in 2010 and 2017, and watched my 24 foot trailer sailer sit out the same cyclones on her trailer, while trees nearby were uprooted and my 6 foot timber fence was destroyed, I can attest to number 2 being a good idea.

Having lived through numberous floods, cyclones and bushfires, and lost a lot of 'stuff' including the boats, caravan, vehicles and a house, I don;t believe prayer would help 'me' all that much, but I do tend to keep my fingers crossed.

My favourite ground anchor is about ten 6 foot long steel (fencing) Star Pickets hammered about three foot into the ground (at an angle) at strategic positions around the trailer - which is tied down to them.

The mast is lashed to the pulpit and the taffrail, and a few ropes passed all the way around the whole thing (under the trailer, round the boat, over the mast and back to the trailer) in a couple of places.

Cost of ten 6 foot steel Star Pickets was about AUD$50ish last time I bought them. No idea what they are called in the USA, but they are hammered into the ground every ten foot or so between wooden posts, to run wire fencing across farms.

It's a relatively cheap way to store a Cat 22 on its trailer and the biggest risk woould probably be one of those US Tornadoes dropping a house on it . .

[mojoman2]

I owned a Catalina 22 for 25 years. It has a lot of great features. How are you going to use it? I kept mine on a trailer with the mast rigged at a lake. I could launch it in 30 minutes. I couple of experienced guys could rig one with the mast down in an hour.

I used it for cruising on the local lake and trailering it to other places. I cruised in the intercoastal waterway with it several times, but I never went out in the open ocean. I would be very careful about the weather before taking one offshore.

I also racer both locally and nationally on it. It has a great national fleet that is very competitive. The fleet has both spinnaker and non-spinnaker divisions as well as a silver fleet (beginners). If you are interested in racing, you will want to find a club that has a one design fleet. Where you will race exclusively against the same type of boat.

The boat is a low investment way to get into a lot of sailing options. There are over 10,000 made so you can find a decent used one and not pay depreciation costs of buying new (if you want to race, the first 1000 made are considered to be the fastest), and if you end up not liking it that much, you can probably sell it for close to what you bought it for.

On the downside, the boat is slow compared to most other boats of this size. However if you are in a one design fleet, you will only be racing against other C22's. If your club does handicap racing the boats rating should compensate for the speed difference.

Also, the boat was made with 3 different keel configurations: swing, fixed, and wing. Definitely get the swing keel. It points higher than the others and you can pull it up when you want to beach the boat. You can also get a swing up rudder which is a nice option if you want to beach it.

All and all, the C22 is a good multipurpose entry level cruiser/racer boat that can be trailered. I really liked mine.

[JPA Cate]

I think what you are calling Star Pickets are "engineering stakes" in the States. I once used a few to replace rotten fence posts.

Ann

[ktbaker]

I owned a Catalina 22 for 3 or 4 years and bought it when it had just sunk after a storm. (it was Cheap) rebuilt it and sailed the Chesapeake. Even got a wife out of the deal. It was great fun and did some one design racing as well.

[iamwhatiam]

Originally Posted by sinnerman

As they say, the smaller the boat the more the fun.

Catalina Direct sells most of the parts needed to maintain/restore Catalinas. There is a ton of blog info out there on the Cats as well.....

cheers

Catalina direct has been good. Except for little mistakes here and there. i.e. sending me a left-handed thread T-bolt when I specifically asked for right hand, and sending me lots (or even missing) of wrong sized cotter pins with my standing rigging kit. It's minor, but frustrating.