My first season with a C34

[Kyle Ewing]

My first season on Lake Michigan with Donnybrook, my 1990 Cataline 34, has now officially ended as I winterized the boat this afternoon.  I've been extremely happy with Donnybrook.  These are my impressions.


Sailing Performance and Comfort
My previous boat was a 30' S2.  The S2 has a 25' waterline length and weighs 9800 pounds.  The C34 feels noticably lighter than the S2 on the water.  In large seas (4-6' and larger Lake Michigan chop), the C34 gets bounced around as much or more than the S2.  The larger waves are an exception so I'll take its performance and comfort in better conditions.

We made two lake crossings, Chicago to Michigan City, Indiana (40 miles) and Chicago to Holland, Michigan (90 miles) and the boat was extremely comfortable.  We had ample room for 4 adults and provisions for 5 days.  Because of lack of wind, we ended up motoring about half the time on each of the trips and the M25XP ran flawlessly.  The noise wears on me after several hours (8 hours one trip) so I'll be investigating sound proofing as was recently discussed on this forum.

I averaged sleeping a night a week on the boat over the summer and felt like I could've lived aboard if my wife would've cooperated.  My wife (who doesn't get any closer to camping than a Holiday Inn) was comfortable staying 2 nights numerous times.

The sails are original and need replacement.  New sails should really make it come alive compared to the S2.  The main sail has the Doyle Stack-Pack which after using, I won't give up.  I have a cruising spinnaker with sock and it is easy to fly with two people.  

The routing of the main halyard back to the cockpit causes A LOT of friction (as is written on the forum).  I can raise it by hand from the mast, but from the cockpit I need the help of the winch to get it the last third of the way up.  I'll be looking at fixes for this in the off-season.


OPD Valve, Propane, and Cooking
Donnybrook had the pre-OPD valve on the tank.  I found a local shop that exchanged the old 5# tank for a new one for $35 including propane.  I ordered the new lid from Seaward but still had to trim it to get the tank to fit.  

I estimate I used less than half a tank the entire season, cooking mostly breakfast (average one meal/week).  The stove and oven cooked much better than I anticipated.


Elecrical
As has been said here multiple times, the wiring harness upgrade is a must!  I performed this the day after I launched.  At launch, the glow plugs failed to heat when activated.  This was traced to a bad connector in the wiring harness.  After I replaced it, I didn't have a single problem with the engine electrical system.  With the connectors being as bad as they were in fresh water, I can't imagine how they must be in salt water.

I installed 4 Trojan T105 golf cart batteries in two banks.  They fit perfectly in the existing battery box.  I used 5/16" plywood on two sides to provide for a more snug fit.  Powerwise they met my needs.  On one trip I was away from power 48 hours.  I ran the engine (stock alternator) for about 30 minutes midway through the trip.  Running the refrigerator full time (temperatures were only in the high 60's) the battery voltage was 12.3 volts after 2 days indicating a charge over 50%.  Based on how I use the boat (at dock often with power), the batteries should be sufficient.

The wiring was stock.  From the battery switch to each bank I added a 2 gauge run in parallel to the existing 4 gauge cables.  I also added a 2 gauge ground wire in parallel to the original.  I never had a problem starting the engine, warm or cold.  

I added a 150amp circuit breaker at each battery.  I understand that size won't offer much protection except for a dead short of the battery cable, but because I use them as the starter batteries, my concern is with them tripping while trying to start the engine.  If nothing else, they also serve as a quick disconnect which came in handy.  The previous owner wired directly to the battery switch a cigarette lighter accessory plug.  When I unpluged my handheld GPS, it fell apart and shorted out creating a lot of smoke as the insulation burned.  The disconnect made a bad situation manageable.  Moral of the incident:  Go over every detail yourself and make sure all systems are as you would have it.  Don't assume a previous owner knew what he/she was doing.

I replaced the stock Pro Mariner battery charger with a Truecharge 40 battery charger with remote indicator.  I placed it in the locker aft of the nav table.  It worked flawlessly.  The Pro Mariner charger was located in the large lazarette in the cockpit.  The wires to the battery were grossly undersized, 8 gauge for a 15' run!  It goes to show that even though the factory does it, it may not be right.


Air Conditioning/Heating
I don't have either other than a 1500 watt space heater I use when sleeping, but at least on Lake Michigan, there were only a handfull of nights where I didn't sleep on the boat when I wanted to because of the the heat.  It seems like a good heating system would go farther to lengthening the sailing season by makeing April, May, and October more bearable, especially with a fully enclosed cockpit.



Overall, I've extremely pleased with the boat.  I've gotten a lot of compliments.  People seem to really like the interior with all the wood over modern boats.  People are most impressed with the size of the V-berth!  

This group is an excellent source of information.  Just about every question I've had about the boat is documented here somewhere.

I'm looking forward to many more seasons with Donnybrook.  Only 6 months to spring launch!

Kyle Ewing
Donnybrook #1010
Belmont Harbor, Chicago

[John Gardner]

Good to hear a happy skipper.  My first complete season too, and have done some similar upgrades.  But what intrigues me today is the sail hoisting problem.  As you say, many have complained about it.  I seem to be lucky.  I can hoist my sail from the cockpit without any problem, using the winch just to tighten the luff.  It looks as though all the running gear is original - certainly no ball bearings.  Sail slides are 1 inch T-section plastic slides.  Me? 175 lb - no muscular bear.  I can't think of anything that makes my set up special, so I just wonder if there is a problem that has not been recognized.  Could the halyards be installed twisted round each other in the mast for example?

[Ted Pounds]

Apparently there is a conduit inside the mast that the main halyard goes down.  I discovered this when I had to rerun my main halyard and apparently missed the conduit the first time.  This added lots of the friction.  My solution was to rerun the halyard again but this time I led it with a messiger line that had 3 feet of light chain on the end.  The chain drops straight down from the sheave and hits the conduit.  Just a thought...

Ted

[Stu Jackson]

Kyle:  Nice job, thanks for the input.  I'm typing WEBLOG here so that when we search we can get yours and Steve's from last year.  Sounds like you had a great season, many more to come.

John and Ted:  I seems to recollect that the conduit in the mast was for wiring.  I haven't heard about running the halyard trhough a conduit.  In hearing about other issues, you're right about friction through the blocks.  Can you get it up from the mast?  Are you sure your halyards at the top end are clear - sometimes I've heard of halyards getting wrapped at the top if you don't use extra halyards that may have come with your boat.  Let us know how it works out.  Have you tried a Find on halyard or raising main ?

Stu

[Ted Pounds]

Well if there is no conduit at least re-running it with the chain leader keeps it from catching on, or wrapping around whatever inside the mast.  It worked for me.   :cool:

Ted

[Kyle Ewing]

On my boat, the problem is definitely with the halyard redirection, probably where the halyard goes through the traveler.  I originally thought the sail slides where binding, but lubricating them didn't make any difference raising the sail, although it helped a lot with dropping it!  I used liberal amounts of McLube SailKote on the sail slides.

If I raise the main while standing at the mast, there is no friction at all so I'm confident the problem is not in the mast.  I'm thinking it may be the material of the halyard.  As it gets tighter, it gets more difficult to slide through the traveler.  I may be replacing the halyards in the off-season.  I so, I'll look for something that has less resistance.

I've also experienced the problem with the spinnaker halyard binding that Stu mentioned.  It took me a little while to experiment with the best place to secure it when not in use.

Kyle

[Frank Stich]

Kyle,

I replaced my 7/16" main halyard recently with 3/8" (same as the factory I believe).  I can easily raise the main from the cockpit and tighten the luff with a few turns of the winch.  The smaller line does require an extra turn of line on the winch to prevent slippage.

If you go into the archives you can find a lively discussion of 7/16 vs. 3/8 line...

Frank

#927 "Prime Interest"