Towing a Catalina 27 and questions about what trailer

caguy

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Sep 22, 2006
4,004
Catalina, Luger C-27, Adventure 30 Marina del Rey
Hello: We have a 27 Catalina, fin keel.

This past spring, we towed her from Montana to Florida (and back). 6,300 miles in total. We had a double axle trailer with 3500 lb axles. So . . . yes, we were a bit overloaded. Electric brakes on one axle. Our tow vehicle was a Dodge 3500 (one ton) diesel.

The trip went very very well. I did have to switch a couple of the tires around because they were wearing a little unevenly. I have new axles on there with the grease zerk on the spindle ends; these are awesome because they inject new grease directly into the inner bearings and flushes the old grease through the outers. This is a very good system - way better than "bearing buddies".

I stopped at a highway scale at a truck stop and found that the weight on the trailer wheels was 8,100 lbs. That is with a pretty heavily provisioned boat. No hassle at all with oversize. Despite going through 21 states, not one time were we stopped and checked/measured/questioned. No hassle there at all.

I do know that we were overloaded by a thousand pounds or so. it worked, but I felt we were "on the edge". I would strongly recommend either 3 - 3,500 axles, or 2-5,000 axles.

The dodge (cummins diesel) handled the towing job admirably. No problems there at all. We cruised along at 65 mph without any problems at all - even in the mountains. We averaged 11.9 mpg over the whole 6,300 miles.

I see that a lot of the discussion involved bunks and launching. For us at both launch and load, we used a travel lift/crane.

I would be happy to send pictures or answer any questions.

Regards, and good luck!

~markb
I would Like to see pictures. I have a shoal draft, but I have a friend who is looking to buy a trailerable fin keel C27.
 
Aug 1, 2011
3,972
Catalina 270 255 Wabamun. Welcome to the marina
Good point about the straps.

The Mac was a great boat for what it is, and quite likely the very best choice for an inland lake. That said, we got really tired of getting dressed on our knees, and having the boat on it's butt before the ballast dug in. The Mac would go 15 degrees -right now- and the C270 is hard pressed to go 15 degrees at all. I likely wouldn't buy another Mac, but I know a lot of people who have them, and they're a fun boat to sail.