Catalina Owner Reviews

Serving sailors online since 1997

Review of the Catalina 36mkII by Chris Hyland

Year built	2001
Location of boat	Narragansett Bay RI
The boat is sailed on	Bays, sounds, or protected salt water
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	2001
If the clock could be turned back, would owner buy again?	In a heartbeat! This is a great boat for the money. Coming home from Martha's Vineyard in 12 to 15 seas in Buzzards Bay showed me what this boat can do! If you can hang on, She'll get you there!
Gear that's been added	We added the ST60 Tridata for speed and depth, ST60 Wind, ST6000 underdeck autopilot,Raytheon 520 chartplotter, Raytheon RL70 as second station for chartplotter on helm,TV/VCR,Stereo,1K Watt Inverter and a few other trinkets.
Structural or complex improvements	None
The boat's best features	Usable Space. This boat has one of the best interior designs in it's size range
Problem areas in terms of design, materials, maintenance, etc.	Leaky Chainplates. That's it, other than that the boat has been flawless.
Sailing characterisitcs	She's very easy to sail, as novices we put over a thousand miles under her keel in a single season.
Motoring characterisitcs	She motors great. With the righthand prop she crabs to port in reverse. We'll install an Autoprop this spring to correct this. Difficult to dock to Starboard because of this.
Liveability	This boat is very liveable for our use which is weekending. Very comforable. When we're on a mooring or at anchor we can watch TV or Videos in the evening before we turn in... We're installing a DVD player this spring as they're easier to carry than VHS tapes.The Galley is setup very functionally. I only wish it had a shower stall.
The owner's experience in dealing with Hunter (if any)	I've had no need to contact Catalina, as my dealer has been excellent!
The owner's experience with the boat dealer or broker, if any	Eastern Yachts in RI is a great dealer. I'll buy the next boat from them as well....
Other comments	Some people thought we were crazy for buying a 36 for our first boat. I think it's high praise to say that novices under the guidance of a Capt/teacher can learn to sail on a boat so large. It just goes th show how user friendly the 36 really is....

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