RE: catalina27-talk: C350 opinions

[Larry Robertie]

Good info, gives me something to chew on.  And his fathers boat looks like a decent deal.   Thanks to both of you,   Larry   From: catalina27-talk@memberclicks.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 11:48 AM To: catalina27-talk@memberclicks.com Subject: RE: catalina27-talk: C350 opinions   Ok, here is what Ryan has to say.  From this point, the rest of the message is his. If the guy is willing to look at used, my dad's boat is in like new condition with almost every option that was available. My dad bought his at the Annapolis show, which I'm guessing is which one this guy is referring too. If the guy does go there tell him to get a salesman from somewhere other then Winter's Sailing Center which is a large Catalina dealer in the Philidelphia area who will definetely be there. They are horrible for handling warranty issues or any kind of support once they've sold the boat. His boat's ad on catalinaowners.com is http://www.sailboatowners.com/classified/ownerview.tpl?owno=1144508856419802&fno=20&brsku=1144508856419802.2&bd=Catalina&p1=70000&p2=1000000&xs=All&l1=30&l2=32&active=T&sb=placed&dr=de&ad=all It's a 2003 boat. He's asking $79,900 for it. It's got 75 engine hours on it. I'm sure I accounted for atleast 60 of them. The delivery from Phillidelphia to where it is now probably took 6 hours. You can do the math and figure out how much use my dad has otherwise put on the boat. Except for the 3, 1 week trips and I think 3 weekenders I've done with it, my parents never go more then a mile from their marina and they don't leave the dock if it's blowing more than about 5mph winds. My thoughts on the boat after taking a few one week trips on it. It sails okay with the roller furling main but doesn’t point well. There is a design flaw in that the shrouds are too wide at the spreader so you can't sheet the headsails quite as far as you would really like too. The standard hardware setup is really not race friendly. (The traveller lines are run through rope clutches, the mainsheet uses a jam cleat, etc..) They rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 205-210 PHRF. They have the standard really wide rear end that seems to be common on every new boat. Waves from the rear quarter such as powerboat wake will make it roll a lot especially when under power. It's not so noticable while sailing. The roller furling main takes a bit to get used to but it sails okay once you figure it out. I don't think it's easier to use then a conventional main but if your someone who really never wants to leave the cockpit while underway it does have that advantage. I could single! hand s ail the boat pretty easily myself. You can't really sail with the bimini open. The standard factory bimini is too short to stand up under. My dad had a custom one done that was a few inches higher. However the boom has to be held with the topping lift if the sail is fully out then. It works okay in light air but in any kind of breeze if you try to sail that way you'll have a really sloppy leach and the main will basically flap and not do much else. If Catalina would have put the boom height on the boat 5inches higher this wouldn't be a problem at all. This boat design is overall kind of sloppy when it comes to rigging and mechanics of the boat. They put all the attention ot the interior and no where else. The other C310 issue is the engine idle. Except for the first few boats which had Yanmars, all the rest of the boats have Universals. All the universals need to have a high idle because they vibrate very bad at anything under 1000rpm. There were a lot of issues with the boa! ts for a few years of radiator hoses chaffing through and leaking because of this when they initially shipped the boats with lower idle RPM. To the best I can tell from the C310 mailing list the new boats still have this problem. The engine mounts aren't correctly tuned to damp the idle of the engine As far as problems with the boat, he's had some small nicks and scratches in the gelcoat due to some poor fits here and there. Catalina was pretty good about sending someone to fix those. If the guy wants to look at a used boat that's barely been used at all. My dad's boat has the standard items. Roller furling main, 135 headsail, wing keel, 3blade prop. Standard Raymarine wind, speed, depth. Raymarine GPS/Chartplotter and autopilot and vhs. Cockpit cushions, leather interior cushions, dodger, bimini. The boat has a refrigerator, freezer separate from the icebox as a standard item. TV and a TV antenna, stereo with 10 disk cd changer. Magma Grill. He bought parts to connect it to the boat LPG system but hasn't gotten around to doing it yet. Ryan