Catalina Owner Reviews

Serving sailors online since 1997

Review of the Catalina 36 by Bob Robeson

Year built	1986
Location of boat	Portland, Or
The boat is sailed on	Rivers
How the boat is used	Weekends and longer
Normal wind strength	10-15 knots
Average size of crew	2-4
Liveaboard?	No
Owner bought the boat in	1999
If the clock could be turned back, would owner buy again?	Yes, Yes, and yes! We like its size, room the way she sails, its roomy and comfortable!
Gear that's been added	Yes, a Furuno GPS, Raytheon autohelm, wind speed, and tridata and a sigmar diesel heater. A spiniker, all new halyards and standing rigging. We have (my wife) reupholstered the inside, new teak and Holy and a new fuel tank. Things to come are a windless and radar.
Structural or complex improvements	New mast and all new rigging and a new fuel tank.
The boat's best features	Solidly built, easy to sail, and sails well, and good support from Catalina.
Problem areas in terms of design, materials, maintenance, etc.	In this vintage boat, they mounted the fuel tank right above the bilge. Which is why the tanks do not last to long.
Sailing characterisitcs	Easy to sail, easy to balance and likes wiind under 20 kts, above 20 you need to reef or you will have a handfull. It points very well and carries the spiniker well. It heavy and broad, makeing a stiff boat, I like that.
Motoring characterisitcs	With a 21Hp motor it is under powered. at 2500 rpm we get about 6 kts and WOT we get about 6.5 kts. But under sail we have hit 8 kts without the spiniker and the boats hull speed is 8.3.
Liveability	On a scale of 1 - 10 this is an 8. For a 36 aft cockpit it is a 10, I have not found any aft cockpit 36 that cqan match it. Only a center cockpit would be better.
The owner's experience in dealing with Hunter (if any)
The owner's experience with the boat dealer or broker, if any	We live near Portland Oregon, found a Broker in Seatle Washington area (Jay at Tradewind Yachts) who found the boat in San Diege. He handle every thing from the test sail, to the survey to making the arrangements to have it shipped to Portland. He earned his pay, I got my boat.
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