I'm Baaack
Due to the 6, plus Phil, responses since I signed off, I want to clarify three points I was trying to make. I hope this discussion doesn't go circular and start over. LOL My impression of illusion of space (on the C320), that I referred to, was that the seating and cooking areas are larger than the C310, no question about it. But as you looked forward and aft you see bulkheads with doors, leading to other areas of a size you can't fully see, but in fact aren't that large. To illustrate by carrying it to the extreme, what if the doors were closed, and didn't have any space on the other side at all? Wouldn't a person sitting below, be led to believe the boat was larger than it really was? The C310 doesn't use this method, but rather uses an open approach to let you see more space. Both methods are design tricks. Also, as far as calculating space, I don't use volume measurements. Has anyone heard of comparing the size of houses by cubic feet? Actually, for the below decks seating area, I just counted how many people I felt could sit in each boat. Five in the C310 and seven in the C320 in my opinion. My opinion also is that the C320 has a visibly larger central area, but the boat itself is only marginally larger than the C310 and really wasn’t a factor in our choice. And as for personal preferences, since it's just my wife and myself over nighting 98% of the time, I only need one door on a boat. That would be on the head compartment since we don't close any other door. Also I don't view the C310 as a different class of boat in any case, and especially because it has one less door than the C320. It is of a slightly different interior design concept though, which again, because there are just two of us, it doesn't make sense to divide the boat into a two sleeping cabin layout. It would just make the storeroom (2nd cabin) less convenient. And on the subject of size of the head compartment, I understand that some may feel that a smaller one is fine for a few minuets a day, but there are some 300 pound ex football linemen that have to go too. Thankfully I'm not one of them, but my brother in-law is! (He still owes me for a broken head on my last boat). For him it's not a question of how much time he spends in there, but whether he can move in there at all. Now, I spend a lot of time in there according to my wife, but that's a whole 'nother story. Just to summarize, there were a lot of details to consider, but I agree that for us it was essentially a decision to either go with the larger seating and galley area of the C320, or the nice forward cabin and head of the C310. It was not an easy decision to make, but it was based on the way we use a boat. I did attend a boat show in January, and went back and forth between the C310 and C320 dozens of times. I sat in every conceivable position. I went through the motions of various activities. And I drove the sales people crazy. I have to hand it to anyone who thinks this is an easy choice. I also understand that others use their boats differently, and so feel that other things in a boat are important, where as we do not. That’s probably one of the reasons that Catalina can sell so many different models that are not that much different in size. BTW, has anyone else heard the unsubstantiated rumor as I did, that the C310 is intended as a replacement for both the C30 as well as the C320?
