Catalina 350
My partner and I also sleep "head to bow" and find it very comfortable. I initially looked at it and said "it's impossible" but my wife convinced me to try it and it does work OK. We are both medium sized people. My fridge (95 model) seems to work fine in the Pacific Northwest but does run 40 - 45 min out of the hour. I have tried putting a partition over the end of the evaporator ( initially used only tin foil) but this seems to make a difference and I plan to make a permanent hinged door for it. We find the evaporator is large enough to accomodate our frozen items and this seems to reduce the fridge running time because it is no longer trying to freeze the whole freezer compartment. The downside is that the remainder of the freezer compartment is relatively useless because it is too warm for frozen goods but will freeze some fresh foods (like vegetables). We have determined that it keeps the beer ICE COLD so that in itself makes it worthwhile! I also plan to replace the 4D batteries with 4 - 6 volt golf cart batteries which should give us an additional 100 amp hours for a total of 430 amp hours. We have an additional start battery and a HO alternator with smart regulator. When we bought this boat we were in a position of having to settle for the maximum of 35' LOA because of our boat slip restrictions. The 350 gives you the interior volume of a larger boat and still provides good sailing performance. This is our 5th sailboat (starting at 27' and up to 47'- then back down to 35). We have had production boats (Hunter) and high end custom boats. IMHO for the price Catalina provides a good product and the 350 is no exception.
My partner and I also sleep "head to bow" and find it very comfortable. I initially looked at it and said "it's impossible" but my wife convinced me to try it and it does work OK. We are both medium sized people. My fridge (95 model) seems to work fine in the Pacific Northwest but does run 40 - 45 min out of the hour. I have tried putting a partition over the end of the evaporator ( initially used only tin foil) but this seems to make a difference and I plan to make a permanent hinged door for it. We find the evaporator is large enough to accomodate our frozen items and this seems to reduce the fridge running time because it is no longer trying to freeze the whole freezer compartment. The downside is that the remainder of the freezer compartment is relatively useless because it is too warm for frozen goods but will freeze some fresh foods (like vegetables). We have determined that it keeps the beer ICE COLD so that in itself makes it worthwhile! I also plan to replace the 4D batteries with 4 - 6 volt golf cart batteries which should give us an additional 100 amp hours for a total of 430 amp hours. We have an additional start battery and a HO alternator with smart regulator. When we bought this boat we were in a position of having to settle for the maximum of 35' LOA because of our boat slip restrictions. The 350 gives you the interior volume of a larger boat and still provides good sailing performance. This is our 5th sailboat (starting at 27' and up to 47'- then back down to 35). We have had production boats (Hunter) and high end custom boats. IMHO for the price Catalina provides a good product and the 350 is no exception.