Catalina Owner Reviews

Serving sailors online since 1997

Review of the Catalina 34mkII by Frederick Koehlmann

Year built	2002
Location of boat	Midland, Georgian Bay
The boat is sailed on	The Great Lakes
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	2010
If the clock could be turned back, would owner buy again?	Yes. This boat is an excellent cruising choice. I suppose if we were to have selected a different boat it may have been a larger or newer Catalina, but there are always those financial restrictions. ;-)
Gear that's been added	Nothing big so far, this is our first season. We added the BBQ and tee'd the propane tank to feed it (I hate those little disposable propan cans), and then hung a spare 10# propane tank off the stern. In the north here mosquito season is a pain, so one of our first items was to sew a screen that hangs over the companion way. It's anchored to the dodger nipples forward of the companion way and then drapes foward and down with twisted chain sewn into the perimeter of teh netting. Works well. We also added hatch awnings over the two deck hatches whenever at dock or anchored. This allows us to get fresh air when raining and lessens the sun on the plexi.
Structural or complex improvements	Not so far.
The boat's best features	We love the roominess of the main salon and two cabins. The spacious cockpit and the clear and clean foward deck area. She sails well... had her over 6 knots easily and on the odd lazy day where we only raised the genoa, we easily did 5 knots. Being in Georgian Bay there are many shallow areas and having the wing keel gives us excellent shallow draft for a vessel this size. It allows us to get in to many of the anchorage that I visited with the Grampian 26.
Problem areas in terms of design, materials, maintenance, etc.	For a 34 foot vessel the holding tank is somewaht small. At 18 gallons it is a bit too small for freshwater sailing (especially with four people on board). Also the vent for the holding tank exits from the base of a port stantion. This stantion has a tendancy to leak (and right behind the electrical panel). So I'll be rerouting the vent lin and closing off the through deck in that stantion. If i can find a larger tank I'll be changing that as well.
Sailing characterisitcs	So far she sails well. If we get the main and genoa trimmed correctly, she almost sails without holding the helm.
Motoring characterisitcs	We have a three blade prop and she motors well. Reverse works well also, with the usual (expected) prop walk to port.
Liveability	So far we've had only on season on board and for the four of us it has work out well. On rainy days the little ones sometimes need to get out a bit, and we're considering adding a cockpit enclosure to the bimini/dodger so that we can extend our livable space to the cockpit as well. We love having a refrigerator and hot water (new for us), but we are finding that the frig does put a drain on the batteries. For now we run the engine to change up, but we're thinking about the i2000 Honda generator.
The owner's experience in dealing with Hunter (if any)	N/A
The owner's experience with the boat dealer or broker, if any	We bought the vessel from Navy Point at Sackets Harbour. They took care of moving it to Midland, and managed the border crossing.
Other comments	We love it!

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