C275 Problems

Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
Just confirmed my Catalina mold problem. Jumped on board my previous 1989 Capri22, with owner's permission, and tested the paint and mold theory. Sure enough, a problem I fought for over a decade is the paint. And because it is extremely well known that oil based paint yellows in a non-lite environment, I'm willing to state that Catalina paints their boats with an oil based paint. This surprises me because everyone in the industry should know that oil is a food source for mold. I learned this after the never ending perpetual cycle of teak oil, teak cleaner and teak brightener. What a racket. Took me about five years to figure out to let it go natural and the occasional cleaning with lemon Fantastic.

It's really disappointing that one of the big boat builders doesn't understand the problem of mold. Here are before and after pictures. The light gray mold was tenacious and was permanent all through the time I owned the boat. Notice the yellowing of the paint on the left side after the removal. That's oil.

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In this case I used an old bottle of Citri-Strip, which I can not recall ever using before, and left it on the boat for the owner. Catalina is doing a disservice to their owners when they try to beautify their underside. Absolutely confirms I need to undo Catalina's work. I'd rather have seen the occasional glass than the rampant mold.
 

PMK

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Dec 3, 2016
43
Catalina 275S Annapolis, MD
My mast steaming light was destroyed this weekend by a flogging halyard and sail. Does any owner know the manufacturer and model number of the light? Knowing will save me a second trip up the mast. I am guessing that it is either an Aqua Signal 25 or a Hella Marine light. Catalina does not have a separate part number for it, since it is supplied with the Selden mast. Thanks.
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
And while we are talking about lights, I'm not impressed by the Hella Marine 3562 series that Catalina puts on the bow and stern. The no-tools-to-change-your-light-bulb lenses fall off way too easily. I lost the stern last year when a girl used it as a hand hold and now the bow disappeared within the last two weeks and it is not sitting under the boat in the berth. Swam around long enough yesterday in 50 degree, poor visibility water to know that. The no tools feature is pointless if I have to buy a whole new light, with included bulb, every few years. I'll never have a burnt out bulb.

Going to replace with Aqua Signal 25 (same mounting holes) or if mounting permits the Marinebeam LED N1 series.
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
Keep an eye on the pivot screws on the mast luff track. I believe when the sail rotates from the port side to the starboard side, the screws loosen:

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I've tightened them to have them reloosen. This year I've reinstalled using blue locktite. Forgot to get above as I leave that part on the mast. I'll see how this works out, but hopefully the locktite holds.
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
As I commented in post #10, I'm not fond of Catalina's (more likely Selden's) use of the core to secure to the shackle for the three halyards (jibs & main). You should keep an eye and on them and when motivated, pull the core out, cut the excess and tie the same type of knot as on the spin halyard. Here is my main halyard that is showing wear:

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From pictures, there should be enough room before the knot will hit the sheave. Worked ok on the jib. The tricky part is the core does not melt so finished appearance is a little tough. I may try crazy glue on the core. Additionally, the cover does melt a bit but tends to recede without the core receding.
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
One season later, with no additional cleaning, the mold is holding off where I had removed the Catalina applied paint. This is the cockpit locker hatch that was growing mold within a month or two of new ownership:

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And this is under the saloon seat behind the holding tank where the mold was previously rampant:

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Because of limited access and as a precaution, I painted the hull with white paint and the water tank with a clear paint. I'm happy that my experimental paint job is doing a far superior job than Catalina's paint job keeping mold at bay. I still have a bunch of crawling around to remove their mold growing paint. A good winter project.

When I was in tackling the cockpit locker, I had their 3+ year old paint adhere to the back of my shirt, which I found strange. Here is a before picture of the cockpit locker (paint already removed on right side):

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and after:

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You can see where I hadn't gone all the way up on the left side. You can also see the glass/resin Catalina was trying to beautify. Anyway, I thought I would give a progress report to post #2.
 
Mar 20, 2012
17
Hunter 28.5 leach lake Walker mn.
I have hull #2 and had the same jib length issues. the Doyle loft in florida (Island nautical) re cut it for me. Since then I had Quantam sails build me a 105 jib. The leach is just off the spreaders when sheeted in hard. The boat points better with that sail, but is still doggy in anything off the wind, without a spin up
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
I recently learned a very important lesson. Never use the phrase, "knock on wood" without physically knocking on wood. About two weeks ago, I said "Knock on wood, I haven't had any problems with my saildrive" and I did not knock on wood even though it was right under my keyboard. Two days later, I lost forward and reverse. First I thought I dropped the prop. Prop there, cables all working, nothing obvious. Was not looking forward to sailing the boat back to its trailer 32 nm. away and then have the cost of the transmission being torn apart.

Even google searches were not helping until I happen to stumble on a blog. Looked easy enough and certainly worth investigating before the expense and trouble of hauling my boat. Opened up the tranny and I found the same pin had simply fallen out. Certainly worse for wear after jamming against the gear. So I lost forward and reverse because a $2 pin fell out. Not only that, it is a tapered pin that is inserted from the bottom. Common sense always dictate that you have gravity work in your favor not against you. Clearly there is an engineer in Japan that needs to take Physics 101 and learn about gravity.

Anyway, if you are ever in this situation, something worth looking into if there is no other visible explanation for a Yanmar SD20 failure. Some comments I would like to add to the above blog:
1) You do not need to disconnect the cable from the cable bracket.
2) You do not need to remove the cap to get to the pin. You may need to remove the cap to help get the shifter aligned to the dog clutch on assembly. Removal is also helpful to inspect the gears for damage as I did because of the loose pin. I used a M10x1.5x100 bolt and my largest 1/2" drive standard depth socket as a slider to loosen the cap.
3) On the advice of a Yanmar distributor, I cleaned the hole and pin with break cleaner and used red Loctite to secure. Pounded the pin in well and have my fingers crossed it doesn't fall out. And yes, I crossed my fingers there. To remove the pin, it should be heated to 450+ to melt the Loctite. So anyone buying my boat (#14) in the future, this is public notice that the pin is secured with Loctite 271.
4) Not all of my part numbers matched the blog, so here are my parts:
22301-040250 TAPER PIN 4X25
24321-000550 O-RING 1A G-55.0 (shifter)
24321-000750 O-RING 1A G-75.0 (cap)
24311-000110 O-RING 1A P-11.0 (cap)
With less than 90 hours, I probably didn't need to replace the o-rings, but we are talking about $10 in parts all in.
5) The bearing/gear did not want to go back into the cap easily, so I threw the bearing/gear into the freezer and the cap into a 200F warming drawer. Way more than I needed as even after 10 minutes together, it was still loose. If you take the cap off while the engine is cold, the two parts may stay together.

And lastly, I've changed the anodes by the prop but I did not realize there is an anode in the upper half of the SD20 (part #27210-200550). I'll be replacing that with a fresh water anode this fall and the lower seals as well after the haulout. Fortunately, there is no shore power around my slip and no live-aboards, so I'm less likely to have problems in the first place.
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
After the whole tranny pin problem, I think I become a little more sensitive and started to question that the forward throttle was a bit stiff. Probably been that way the entire time, but now I started to question it. You will know if you have the problem if throttling in gear is stiffer than throttling with the gear disengagement button pushed.

If you have that problem, it is because the shifter throw on the SD20 is shorter than the shifter throw on the Edson 910 Morse Control shifter. Solved my problem by moving the shifter cable to the inner hole of the arm:

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This will reduce the throw by about 3/8". In my case the arm could not move far enough down on the left side (maxed the SD20 arm) and this lack of travel caused resistance on the subsequent throttle movement. It is pretty easy to emulate it without the shift cable connected by preventing the arm from moving all of the way.

It feels normal now, but I did have to remove the locking nut to compensate for the lower neutral hole position. I'm going to thread the rod a bit more with a 10-32 die because there is very little adjustability at either end. I also need to take a dremel with a cutoff wheel to shorten the protruding bolt about another 1/16" because the cable comes in contact now.

Anyway, if you notice stiffness with the throttle in gear as opposed to out of gear, this is what I would look at first.
 
Mar 11, 2014
224
1057
I suspect that everyone has been using the main halyard as a topping lift when not sailing. Unfortunately, the aluminum boom endcap is not strong enough to take the load in all conditions, ie. rocking. Instead of securing directly to the end of the boom, attach to a small line as shown. The stainless pin is much stronger than the aluminum.
View attachment 137195
hull 34 had this boom end broken as well
 
Mar 11, 2014
224
1057
Has anyone replaced their rigging lines? I was tightening my Jib halyard this weekend and the shackle parted from the line. The exposed braided end just parted. Of course that line went right into the mast and will need to be rethreaded through the mast when replaced...

the other Jib and the Spin halyard were in the same state so I cut the end off and tied a knot to the shackle. But now I can't tighten the Jib because the knot is hitting the mast... I guess a trip aloft is due even though I just had the mast stepped... so all that will wait till I get a new line so we just need to go up once.

The lines I'm most concerned with are the back stay. Do you have any info on that? Would hate to be trying the flatten the main and have all of that pop... So its going to be replaced ASAP

And this is just a 2/12 year old boat. But that's what the Florida sun will do to un protected braids
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
Been there done that (posts #10 & #28). Another option to a new line and/or if your jib is too long is to have the head cut down a few inches. I took off 4" on mine and I can use a knot on the jib shackle. But the whole use of the core is a problem waiting to happen. I even had to go up the mast this past summer because I didn't follow my own advice in post #28.

At least the backstay is mostly wire, so that shouldn't be too bad to replace. It will make it shorter, but I wonder if you could get away with new knots instead?
 
Mar 11, 2014
224
1057
while I sort out the Back stay lines I reused the dynema line from my capri to add a newer Back up to the 275. Do you see any issues with adding that Shackle to the Bracket holding the existing back stay. I'm concerned that when it is pulled taught that it might actually be in the way of it laying flat. Thoughts?
Back stay.jpg
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
Sorry, I'm not wild about the setup. When the red and blue lines are given tension, I would be concerned the edge of the thimble might cut into the unprotected core. It's possible that you may not have to replace both (the red and blue lines) as maybe you could get away with shortening one with knots and using a longer replacement for the other to compensate. Additionally, you may want to check out your jib halyards and if they are as long as mine, steal the ends from those to make new line(s).

Not sure if the backstay is a critical component on this boat. Simply, I do not know enough about the rigging limits and if this boat could sail safely downwind in a blow without a backstay. Upwind shouldn't be a problem because of the tension of the mainsheet.
 
Mar 11, 2014
224
1057
I decided to take the thimble out of the equation, was able to negotiate it out of the spice. So now there are two back ups the blue one and the one that I pulled from my Capri.. happened to be the same length. With the thimble out I was able to attach it to the back stay deck connector same way as the blue line. And I tied a knot in the Red line up by the Block so I'm not dependent on that core splice. The Fla sun really took its toll on this boat in less than 3 years as these slices were frayed.

We tried to spice a covered loop in the Jib sheet and found out that due to the UV exposure there isn't enough flexibility to be able to pull that off. So I'm just gonna get new ones from Sheldon.

You raised a good question, that is what does that back stay really do, is it necssary. Given the Spreaders are actually less angled back than the Carpi and a lot less than a Hunter which is made to not have a back stay I'd have to say it is critical going down wind. As such the reason I put my second dynemia line on it.

All of this raises another big question for me... that is the Chain plate attachments. The back stay is just a through bolted attachment point... So my plan is to put on a second through bolted bracket for the second back up line for the back stay

The other question that I wonder if you or others have thought about is the Upper and lower deck attachment point.

My 30, 27 and even the 22 had the uppers connected to a through the deck chain plate that attached (through Bolted) to the bulkhead that was fiber-glassed to the hull. The Capri had a tension rod that was fiber-glassed to the Hull that attached through a turnbuckle to the through the deck chain plate that the Uppers and lowers attached to. As such in all my previous four Catalinas at a minimum the upper shrouds were connected through the deck to the Hull in one way or another

In the case of the 275 there are two U bolts that attach to uppers and lowers and they simply get bolted to a ~ 3 by 6 backing plate with out any attachment to the Hull. Further since the hull to deck connector is on the deck vs the hull it seems the shroud strain is on what ever is used to connect the hull and the deck. Is any one else concerned about this arrangement or am I just being overly concerned...

I guess once you have been on a boat that has lost its stick in a sea way you look for any possible failure point and try and ensure it won't present a problem if you get into big winds...
 
Jun 6, 2016
204
Catalina 275 Wilmette, IL
For those owners that use the self-tacking jib, keep an eye on the jib track endstops for cracks. Getting rounded up in a gust can be hard on the stops and I broke both of mine within 3 weeks of each other. I made some temps out of rubber until I could research my options, which I just installed. I went with the Harken 263 (small boat heavy duty end stops) which is hard rubber with two plastic screw inserts. It is designed for 5mm, but I drilled it out for 6mm (15/64" drill) as that is the thread size of the original. The first hole at 5/16" from the end matched the existing hole. I needed to drill and thread a second hole at 1-1/16" from the end. Hopefully for you, the track pin-stops do not interfere. I was closer than I would prefer to one, but I was still able to thread the hole.

Anyway, just something to keep an eye on if you use the self-tacker.
 
Mar 11, 2014
224
1057
Shroud Connections... are the uppers supposed to be connected to the for or aft chain plate... I see photos with them connected to either
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