thanks for the advice. i have been combing the threads looking for good advice. The current concern for me is price. i am a school teacher so income is no concern, but i recently bought a motorcycle which gave a big hit to my bank account.
i did a quick search on catalina 27s in my area and found one in very good condition for 5000usd
here
and I found one in not good condition for 1000-3000usd:
here
if i could get the second boat and fix'er up that sounds like a lot of fun, since being a teacher i have nothing else to do during the summer, and i would learn a lot about the boat. im just unsure about how much i could be dumping into it and would feel a lot better if i had a friend who knew about this sort of thing and could take a look at it.