Someone is offering the wrong specs!
Gary the specs are confusing : On this site : see "The Boats", at the bottom of the Home Page ( it lists the Catalina 380 at 16,000lb with fin keel ) , whilst over at Catalina Yacht's , they list both the 380 and the 390 at 19,000 lbs fin, 19,500lbs wing).. However to say a Catalina 38 is too light at nearly 8 tonnes is a matter of opinion A lot of sloops half that weight are now out there.......why on p42 -47of February's "Cruising World " there is a story about a 25 ft Pearson sloop off Yemen en-route to Mediterranean from Malaysia. And to think we called them tupperware boats in our arrogance when I lived in Australia in the Seventies ...one of em, a German built 24 foot sloop tied up to poles near me in the Brisbane River(Queensland )after trans Atlantic, Panama Canal , Trans Pacific crossing!) I cruised a lot of the East Coast Australia in a 30 foot ( 8000lbs) locally built Clansman....she "Coramandel" handled fifty knots a lot better than her somewhat scared owner...lol) And we know how big the seas can get there...remember the rescue of 58 sailors by helicopters in Sydney-Hobart few years back., with loss of six lives owing to poor quality life rafts and crew decisions......and after all they were just coastal cruising...well coastal racing! And grandmother Anne Gash (of Australia ) in the mid Seventies, whilst in her sixties sailed a 26 foot Folkboat around the world...only to have her nephew a t helm put it on rocks, taking a short cut , whilst on a Sunday coastal cruise from Sydney to Pittwater, a mere twenty five nm. There is more to offshore than displacement and water capacity. Why a friend here ( Sidney , BC ) who has recently built a 54 ft steel sloop of some 20 plus tonnes to "go" soon, would argue that a glass 42 foot Catalina is too fragile, too small! Sorry.......got carried away! And I do confess I own a 38!
