Catalina 350 International Association

As they say, discretion is the better part of valor. Better luck next time and thanks for posting the link to the live feed. It looked like a long slog up the lake.

Did you start OK? Looks like you're in a slip at Racine when most of the fleet is east of the Door Peninsula. I hope it wasn't too major of an issue..

We keep a 350 in Cape Coral, originally intending to go to the Bahamas but we got sidetracked by buying a house. Not sure about the Bahamas but I'd love to go to the Dry Tortugas sometime this winter.

The 350 is ideal for SW Florida if you want to fit under most bridges and run aground only occasionally . we have one in Lake Michigan and one docked behind our house in Cape Coral. Nuts, I know, but they are perfect for couples cruising and we aren't ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Sounds like normal behavior
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Exceptionally helpful. It was on their site that I saw all these options. We had full winch effort to raise the jib on original 16 year old halyard in salt water. I will follow your advice. Thanks a bunch!

Very interesting rabbit hole there. Any insight as to the various material options for halyards? I had no idea there were performance implications to halyards. I have 2 frayed ones that may need replacement. Is it do-able without going aloft?

Check your through-hull for external blockage. Our A/C intake wasn't working and I think it was a plastic bag that plugged it from the outside. I used the dinghy air pump to backflow the fitting and it was fine without having to approach it from under water.

I have one of these also. Even updating over wifi requires a blank card in the slot to create temporary space so it is very useful.

We followed a similar path. We bought our second 350 and lived aboard at Gulf Harbour Marina in Ft. Myers for some months before finding a house that we could dock up at across the river in Cape Coral. My observations were that the amenities at that particular marina required a very pricey club memb...

I just wanted to wish you condolences on your loss and commend your generosity. We have a 2005 on the Gulf near Ft. Myers and an '06 on Lake Michigan so I share your appreciation of these craft. I'm glad you and yours are safe.

Just a small point to add.. We added hinges to the big swim ladders on both boats so the ladder folds over, allowing it to be deployed under a dinghy hanging from davits. This has been a most worthwhile upgrade. The MK II ladders may be safer but they are in many ways a downgrade for actual comfort/...

We have a 2005 and a 2006, both MkIs. Almost no diffrences aside from A/C and a Panda on the FL boat which means the WI boat has a lot more storage. Obviously, I really drank the Kool-Aid but I'm still among the living

Mine was broken and when I installed the new one, one of the crimp connectors was very loose and just slipped apart. I crimped the new one hard and added heat shrink tubing. It may be something as simple as that..

I called our local shop teacher here in Wisconsin and took a couple 1 foot long 4x4s there and we turned them on a lathe ending up with perfect taper to fit both ends (by virtue of bringing along one longer leg and measuring the diameter with calipers). Super cheap and easy if you can access a decen...

Here are some mods we made to a mkI swim ladder so it can fold under a davit supported dinghy and be easily deployed. We liked it so much we did it on both 350s.

Having had 2 lightning hits, I've explored this also. A frustrating convo with Catalina lead to my conclusion that they do no grounding primarily to avoid responsibility for any damage sustained from someone making the case that the grounding was inadequate. The tone went from friendly/chatty to cor...

Thanks!

Regarding the low bridge east of the lake: Trying to recall 50 year-ago trig but if a 350 is listed to 23 degrees, the cosine of that angle is is 0.92. A 53 foot mast would then require a vertical clearance of 48.76 feet to get through. Any collective thoughts on how much weight suspended on a perpe...

First of all, OH NO to the demise of Billy the boat tipper. That's how Windstar got to the west coast of Florida 2 owners ago. So his technique worked great on a Mk I 350 but now I'm not sure what the workaround will be. Any shared info on the angulation required would be great. We purchased Windsta...