May 29, 2021
We were asked an interesting question: Should we go cruising in our Catalina 36 or buy a bluewater sailboat? It turns out we had a lot to say about this subject and we thought we’d copy it here.
OK, our 2 cents worth…
I guess it largely comes down to two beliefs that we have: the boat you have is the best boat and there is no such thing as a “blue water” boat.
When we planned to go cruising, we contacted a naval architect and had a 46 aluminum cutter designed that was everything we believed we wanted. Our lives changed and we never started the build. Instead, we had the opportunity to take six months off and decided to sail Legacy to Hawaii from Los Angeles. We learned so much during that time and after that, we didn’t think much about building “our dream boat.” Instead, we started to think about cruising in Legacy, our Catalina 38.
Is Legacy the perfect cruising boat? Is she the perfect “blue water” boat? No. But then we really don’t believe there is such a thing. All boats suck in their own way. The perfect boat for us was one whose flaws we could live with and that would hopefully hold together through whatever came her way.
You asked about a Hallberg Rassy 45 and the Bluewater 42. I don’t know anything about the Bluewater but I do have an opinion about the Hallberg Rassy and that is they are way overpriced, maybe because of John and Amanda Neal. They’re probably great boats but every time I see one for sale, I suffer extreme sticker shock. There are a lot of boats that are as good or better at much more reasonable prices.
Is Legacy a blue water boat? I know a lot of people would say no but we’ve sailed her about 50,000 miles and the previous owner put on about 20K, including a trip from the US to NZ. While heading from New Zealand to the tropics, he was caught in the famous Queen’s Birthday Storm. Some boats didn’t make it through that, but he had no problem other than complaining about having to hand steer because the wind was so different in the troughs versus the crests of the 50 foot waves. I think that would at least say she’s blue-water proven.
In 9 years of being in the South Pacific and making passages between Australia, New Zealand and the tropics, we actually only recall one boat that didn’t hold up in blue water conditions and that was the Niña – a very old, wooden yacht. No one knows what happened to her but after leaving NZ for Oz: she was never heard from again.
Other boats have gotten into trouble and had failures, but none that we know of have had any kind of catastrophic failures. One boat, Windigo, a Beneteau, was abandoned in a storm leaving Tonga for NZ. Windigo later turned up on a beach in Australia about a year later.
People sail around down here in some pretty rough conditions in all kinds of boats, many I wouldn’t take for a day-sail around a land-locked lake, yet somehow, they all seem to make it (with our without their crew!).
We have two stories about very unlikely boats making successful ocean passages. Gary, our friend from California, used to buy used Catalina 30s in Los Angeles, put in a couple of weeks of work on the boats, sail them to Australia and sell them at a good profit there. He was also caught in the Queen’s Birthday storm in one of those Catalina 30s and made it through fine.
A long time ago, we owned and lived aboard a Catalina 30. We sold it to a man who was desperate to take it to Hawaii where he had a berth waiting (a berth he had only a short time to occupy or lose it). It was the middle of winter when we sold him our boat and not the time for that passage as storms form in the Gulf of Alaska and travel south making for some terrible conditions en route. We thought we’d talked him out of the passage, but (after completing the purchase) he slipped away in the night and headed offshore.
A couple of weeks later, we’d heard a news report of a boat lost on the way to Hawaii with a couple aboard. We called the broker and found out it was our boat. The US Coast Guard never searched as they said the presumed track of the boat led it into a storm that wasn’t survivable. About 4 weeks later, we got a call from our broker telling us that Rudolf made it to Honolulu and that all was well. It turns out they hove to for several days without tightening the wheel brake and the steering quadrant destroyed itself. Once the storm passed, it took him over a week to get the steering working well enough to get him to Hawaii.
So our bottom line answer to your question is that if it were us, we’d take the Catalina 36 you have, make some necessary upgrades like a liferaft and an EPIRB, and go cruising. We used to rent a Catalina 36 in Los Angeles and loved it. It’ll do fine, especially for your planned season in the Great Barrier Reef. From that trip, you’ll learn a lot about the boat you’d like to sail further offshore. Perhaps you’ll learn that the boat you want is the boat you already have.
If that’s not the case, you’ll be in a better position after that experience to decide on your next boat. (We doubt you’ll still want the Hallberg Rassy!) Also, boat prices seem to be very high right now with Covid-19 causing many people to rethink their life choices. Maybe prices will come down when those buyers decide that cruising wasn’t right for them.
Good luck with whichever path you choose. Maybe we’ll get to share a perfect tropical anchorage with you in the near future.
Rich and Cyndi
