ClewedIn.com

These pages will mostly cover the search for, restoration and repair of our 1977 Catalina 30.  We had looked around quite a bit before finding her.  Even a trip to North Carolina was part of our search.  (Who doesn’t love coming up with an excuse for a road trip?)

She was purchased April 2007 as a test boat for our marine computer systems.  We found her at Bert Jabin’s yard offered by Sail Annapolis.  She spent nearly three weeks there waiting for us to be able to schedule a drop date and the time to sail her home to Havre de Grace, MD. 

While she sat in the yard we patched up her “Catalina Smile”, corroded keel nuts and slapped a coat of bottom paint on her.  It was during this time we noticed considerable crazing to the hull below the waterline, but no obvious blistering.  More extensive repairs would wait until next season in dry dock.

Since my wife, Liz, and my sailing experience consisted of a few times sailing our 16’ Hobie and a couple trips on my dad’s boat, we enlisted dad’s help as crew for the trip home.  Dad has considerably more sailing experience and a captain’s license to boot. 

The first day of our trip was perfect, northwesterly 15 knot winds, plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the 70’s.   We found a few minor issues, primary that the chain plates were loose.  These we tightened.  So for the first day things were relatively uneventful.  Our entire day was spent sailing one port tack.  We set the hook in Fairlee Creek around 10pm (that’s a fun entrance after dark).  We logged our stop and settled in for the night.

The morning greeted us with somewhat rougher weather.  Winds around 25 knots from the west and about 15 degrees cooler.  We set  a reef in the sails as we left the protection of Fairlee Creek and headed into light chop of about 1-1.5’ seas, still great sailing.  Again we spent most of the morning on a port tack.  As we approached Turkey point we finally needed to tack to catch the channel around Aberdeen to get to Havre de Grace.  Now the fun started. 

After a short time on the starboard tack Dad and I were below and noticed some considerable movement in the starboard cabinet.  What we came realize was the bulkhead was not secured to the lower hull so the chain plates were expanding the cabin roof away from the hull, not good.  At this point we eased off the wind to assess the situation.  Since repairs looked a little more involved than we wanted to do under way we decided to motor the rest of the way.

About 30 minutes of motoring as we were approaching Fishing Battery Island, I glanced down at the fuel gauge to see it flat on empty.  Oh fun!  We left with nearly half a tank which should have been more than enough to motor most the trip but here we were on empty after about an hour motoring.  No it seemed time to make those bulk head repairs.  I grabbed the cordless and set out to drill new holes through the bulkhead and settee base.  With the bolts relocated into fresh holes she looked like she hold (in fact she did for the rest of the season!).  So now set of on the task of sailing up the very narrow channel leading to our port.  Thank God we brought the captain!  As it turned out there were two factors leading to the would be empty tank.  A new tank half the original size was installed and the fuel gauge was defective,  we actually had some fuel.  None the less we made it to Penns Beach marina a little after noon having learnt two very valuable lessons every sailor probably knows: always expect the unexpected and carry an extra fuel can!

Our first summer of was great, with only an anchor drag on an overnight and a small cabin fire, giving us a bit of a scare.  During the season we found plenty of other issues with our “new” boat, most of them taken by themselves I would consider minor, but as they compiled to a list, I started to wander what wasn’t broken.   Leaking ports, head, holding tank, sinks and faucets.  Electrical issues, transmission and fuel problems.  You get the idea.  I will post a full list. 

When the season came to an end we began to agonize over where to store her for winter that would give us the best chance to perform repairs.  We decided it would in our yard next to the garage.  We made arrangements with Chris White of Otter Creek Marina to haul it to our house.

The first step in this process was to find a marina for the haul out.  Since we kept the boat in Havre de Grace which is in Harford County, but lived in Cecil County, it was suggested that we have it hauled in Cecil county to avoid transporting across the bridge over the Susquehanna River.  Perryville was the logical choice, but none of the marina’s could handle un-stepping our mast.  After pondering the dilemma, and a few failed calls to other marina’s, I called the captain (dad)  once again.  He suggested that we do it ourselves, boy he’s the adventuresome type. 

So much the chagrin of Liz, dad concocted a feat of engineering plan to drop the estimated 40’ 250lb mast.  So late one October afternoon, we started building a rig that looked like something the ancient Romans would have used.

Of course, as we worked the weather took a turn for the worst.

The operation seemed to be going smoothly at first.  We got the mast horizontal 20’ in the air and started to lower it.  That’s when things went awry.  A small cable caught the top of the rig and the mast got stuck after we removed the first cross brace.  This also caused the whole structure to start skewing.  To make matters worse the wind picked up and the mast started rotating back and forth.  

Somewhere during the commotion I saw my boats like pass before my eyes envisioning the mast coming crashing down onto the deck.  Looking back, I’m sure there was really no way for this to happen but was still pretty scary.  Finally, dad used the ladder as a long pole and pushed the stuck cable off the rig.

With that, we were able to lower the mast, although we did end up cutting the cable as it fell to the outside of the rig and continued to cause problems.

A few days later we moved the boat over to Perryville to have her hauled and transported to the house.  This itself was not without issues.  The tides ended up being all wrong and we got grounded twice and had to drag the boat though the mud to get it to the sling (you can see the mud on the keel). 

After getting the boat to the house we set off on the task of building a shelter.  We decide to build a temporary shed  around her.  We even employed the mast as a ridge board.

I will break the rest of this blog up into sections by the work being done.  The will present as follows:

• Hull


• Floor / Keel nut replacements


• Interior and cabinet refinish


• Topside


• Rigging and mast


• Electrical


• Plumbing and waste systems


• Miscellaneous and fun stuff