We have had our C445 No.66 now for 8 months and cruised or raced over 3000nm in that time. We are located in Brisbane Australia and are fortunate enough to be able to moor the boat on our own jetty behind our house. This makes it easy to race the boat on the Wednesday and Saturday races. When we ordered the boat we could get very little information on the boats performance apart from the normal Catalina blurb. Much to my surprise and a lot of other people and the club handicapper the boat has performed very will even with the worst mainsail I have ever seen and the standard 135% headsail (standard Catalina Doyle sails). We did opt for the fin keel as I knew I was still going to club race this boat and I wanted good windward pointing ability, plus the weight saving so I could still have air-conditioning, generator, decelinator and all my wife's junk. Hopefully we will improve the performance even further when my new Norths sails arrive this week. I have gone for a Carbon main with 4 full length and 3 short vertical battens and a 150% carbon headsail. I am having trouble coming to grips with a furling Main sail after normally sailing with high performance big roached fully battened mains. The only problem is I am heading overseas for 6 weeks next weekend so I will not know how the new sails go until I return.
Anyway after all that, can anybody provide any information as to whether there is a group providing for C445 owners. We currently have 2 fin keel 445s in Brisbane and a 3rd shoal draft 445 doing charter work on the Great Barrier Reef up north plus there are 2 or 3 more in the southern states. As I said l am going overseas at the end of the week so I will not be round to make any replies after next weekend, but I will reply when I get home on if I have a chance to get on the net while away.
Thank,
John
Anyway after all that, can anybody provide any information as to whether there is a group providing for C445 owners. We currently have 2 fin keel 445s in Brisbane and a 3rd shoal draft 445 doing charter work on the Great Barrier Reef up north plus there are 2 or 3 more in the southern states. As I said l am going overseas at the end of the week so I will not be round to make any replies after next weekend, but I will reply when I get home on if I have a chance to get on the net while away.
Thank,
John