Topics

The work on the new fuel tank has started. Moved it to where the aft water tank used to live and making it to use as much of the volume available in that area.

Has anyone ever considered building integral water tanks in areas that are otherwise dead space? Like under aft cabin bed, under floor in galley. Lots of volume there. Could gain a fair bit of useable space if oem tanks were removed in favour of the integral tanks.

Well it is one of the "must do's", so many other things to do that this one was put on the back burner and it came back to bite me. Didn't get out of hand and for the time being I just spliced the wires and eliminated the plug all together.

Looking to see what people have done about the inadequate setup in our older mk1 and mk1.5 regarding all the lines led aft. I'm getting a ton of extra load on things like spinnaker halyard and main outhall. Double to triple the load seen at the mast, deck organizer is in a horrible spot and oem fairleads under the traveller makes the lines go up and makes the angles even worse.

Does anyone know of the existence of a broken C34 mast? I need a one foot long piece of it. Happy to pay for someone's time to get it and ship it to me.

Hi,

It's getting close to the time for me to have my boat measured for a new gennaker and I have a few options. Trying to have a good balance for various wind conditions. Does anyone know at what TWS will our boat achieve hull speed with a 135% Genoa? On a reach. I have the option of two different gennakers and don't want to go too big or too small, one is the helix gennaker and the other is the easy furling gennaker. The Helix can point higher while the easy furling gennaker can run deeper. Either sail can achieve similar angles but they're optimized differently, at least that's how I understand it.

I read some of the older threads on windlass upgrades and haven't seen a comparison between brands. Pretty much every brand out there makes both vertical and horizontal windlasses. What's the consensus on which one is best from a quality perspective?

The original windlass setup by Catalina Yachts is beyond retarded, an upgrade is a must. Leaning towards a vertical setup with a capstan protruding thru the anchor locker lid. It will give me more head room between top of chain pile and bottom of windlass which in turn should make operating it possible from the cockpit. Any of you find any windlasses with a chain counter as an integrated solution and not an afterthought as most are?

I've been working on this little project for several weeks, pretty happy with the design but still consulting with the fabricator I'm working with. Building the bowsprit for my new gennaker and possibly a code 0 down the road, I already have the Harken Reflex furler and the sail should be here in a couple of months. There's a few elements that aren't pictured in the design but I'll update once I get some more work done. I'll be using 316 stainless to the construction.

Feedback is welcome!

Would anyone be interested in having a 3D model of a Catalina 34 mk1.5? I'm getting a quote for having a company scan my boat for purposes of designing things in CAD. The cost is not prohibitive (depending on point of view). Once I have an exact quote I will update, but wanted to know if there are a few people interested in splitting the cost.

I remember seeing someone post technical drawings of where Catalina had glassed in aluminum backing plates within the core of the deck. Does anyone have them handy?

Thanks!

At it again 

Adding a custom bow sprit and modifying the pulpit as to accommodate a harken reflex furler for a north sails helix gennaker. So far I've just taken all the fittings off the bow, should have a mock up within a week or so that I can share here.

Offering up my brand new fuel tank, it's been in use for a couple of months. It was custom fabricated by a welding shop in my area. Two inspection hatches, extra fuel pickup ports for diesel heater or anything else you might need it for. Built out of 3/16in aluminum plate and will come with the fuel level sender as well.

Asking $2000 cdn. Would prefer to sell locally but if I have to deal with shipping it I will.
I'm located in the Vancouver BC area.

Figured I'd started a thread to compile all the different project into one place, I'll probably sit down and add links to the various threads I started previously here.

Bottom job is done, painted and ready to go. This week is just final assembly of all essential systems before I get back in the water on Friday.

The boat had several blisters that needed attention and as previously stated in another thread I eliminated some thru hulls and relocated others.

Need some quick advice, I'm 10 days away from launching my boat and need to figure out the grounding. I have installed an r&d flexible coupling which breaks the continuity of electricity to sea water. R&D sells a silver impregnated rubber strip that one rolls up and installs inside the flexible coupling to re-establish the connection. I can do that or simply install a sintered grounding plate.

Which would be a better solution?

So my mast is back up and had a rigger come help when when I was getting it re-stepped. Yes I could just hire a rigger to come and tune it for me but I wouldn't learn anything. Haven't found anything very simple to follow when it comes to instructions on how to do it. Read in the c34 manual and I'm still having doubts I'm understanding it properly.

I'm going to purchase a tension gauge to help me with tunning but from what I understand it's not the only think you need.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? A YouTube tutorial or something easy to follow?

Thank you!

Hello,

I will be tackling this job in the near future and decided to start with drawing up a diagram of the AC/DC system. I'll post updates as I go along, for those of you that have the expertise or are perhaps even marine electricians feel free to comment on any issues you might see.

I'm not in any way certified and I'm simply doing what I feel is the right way of doing it after years of reading and researching.

Hello all and happy new year!

I've decided to remove the holding tank, it's the original tank that is now 28 years old and has permeated so boat doesn't smell that great.

I really don't like the location of the holding tank, it is in a prime location for easy accessible storage, so I removed the thru hulls and glassed them over. New tank will sit in the narrow locker between the head and chart table. To me that's such a useless space, so narrow and deep that it's hard to use. I can fit a 30 gallon tank in there, all I have to do is build a shelve for it to sit on. The discharge thru hull will be right below it in the same locker which is another advantage, no need to remove cushions and pull the board up just to the to the valve to discharge.

Any input?

Has anyone opened up the sole in the forward cabin? I'd like to install my new dst-810 in the location just forward of the bulkhead. I'm pretty sure there's enough clearance but I can't see what's under that floor, any stringers?

Decided to upgrade from the hood seafurl 915 to a Harken MKIV unit 1. I'm not a fan of the continuous line furlers.

Mast came down a week ago and I'm in the process of essentially replacing everything on it, lights, vhf antenna and all the wiring.

I started by asking the "Pros" about what furler size I need and got nothing but a headache, I'll trust my ability in reading a manual more than their so called "20+ experience".

New forestay being ordered tomorrow and then time permitting will be putting together the new furler in a week or two.

Hello everyone,

I got the boat hauled out a week ago to do some bottom work and a few other projects. One of them is installing a new raymarine ev-200 below deck autopilot, I dropped the rudder today but couldn't pull it out completely as the boat is just not quite high up enough. Removing the radial drive was a PITA, 3 out of 4 bolts snapped, was enough to release the pressure though and I got it out in one piece. Took it home to take it apart, got lucky and was able to drill out the 3 bolts that snapped. It shows a fair bit of corrosion but won't know for sure if I'll re-use it until i soda blast it.

I'm having a fab shop make me a tiller arm for the autopilot, 1" aluminum plate with the same bore hole as the radial drive and a coupe of 3/8in bolts should do the trick. Playing around with the idea of using the tiller arm as "clamp" around the radial drive, not sure I'll bother with that idea though.

The second part of the equation is going to be glassing a mount to the hull for the linear drive to bolt on to, can't start on that till the tiller arm is built though. Going to make a jig that will bolt on to the tiller arm at 90° on one end and the other end will have 4 holes on it to show me where on the hull I need to make the mount.

Hi!

So as a new owner to a 1992 Catalina 34 that came with a head that didn't work it was obviously my first project. Decided to treat myself and get a Jabsco Deluxe flush electric head, no more explaining to non boaters how to flush lol. I will be editing a video of the whole process but I figured I'd share with the group the progress so far. I've worked with insulation foam as a plug material before and I like how easy it is to create any shape you want. The idea is to build a fiberglass insert that will accept the new head but that can be removed down the road if I change my mind or sell the boat and new owner wants to go a different route. Should look almost factory when I'm done.

Hello!

I'm a new member and a new owner of a 1992 Catalina 34, moved up from a Catalina 30 (hull #27, https://jeunesse27.wordpress.com/).

Still exploring and getting to know my new boat but one thing has me puzzled. The rudder post seems to be misaligned, I don't see any indication that a repair was done so it leads me to think this was done at the factory. I noticed it when I removed the cover to access the top of the rudder where you'd insert the emergency tiller. The top of the rudder is completely off Center when compared to the hatch that's cut into the deck which is exactly on the Center line of the boat. As if the top of the rudder post is tilted towards starboard and the bottom of the rudder tilted to port, not sure that makes sense?

Took a picture from down below, it's very visible that the hole was cut out off Center. Is this intentional or was my boat built on a Friday?