Swing Keel or Fixed Wing Keel? Catalina 22 or 25?

[camaraderie]

BRCincy..In the interest of brevity, I would say forget about the 25 and go with the 22. Both are nice 1st boats and the 25 would be better for weekending...but trailering and mast stepping is much easier with the 22 swing keel and your Liberty CAN handle it...especially in OHIO!
As suggested:
1. Take good care and maintain the swing keel tube and wire and SHACKLE.
2. Get yourself the wooden mast stepping rig or make one a it will make getting rigged a whole lot easier. Here's two ways to do it:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rwahlfel/www/c22maint.htm

Have fun!

[BRCincy]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

...but trailering and mast stepping is much easier with the 22 swing keel and your Liberty CAN handle it...especially in OHIO!

I am very glad to hear that. Now a question for you: Is the Wing Keel also trailerable, and launchable on a ramp? Or would the swing keel be preferable to the wing keel in this case? (Wing Keel having the maintenance advantage)

[cardiacpaul]

you're going to get sick of stepping that mast after doing it 3-4 times.

[edtolman]

Thanks for the post...I too am interested in buying a first time boat.

[sailingdog]

Paul's got a good point... might want to look at this thread:

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/buying...railering.html

[BRCincy]

Thanks for the link.


May I ask, what would be a good trailer sailer? Makes and models? I was under the impression that the Catalina 22 was one, but now I am not so sure. Maybe something smaller, a daysailer?

Thanks

[Lostmt]

You can pull as much weight as your Jeep will untrack. The main problem with that is tongue weight. All new double axle trailers today have breaks. You would first need overload springs to level out the Jeep. Second a strong receiver hitch.

I pull a gooseneck 2 horse inline weight 2300 lbs, 1000 lbs of tack, feed, etc.. 2 horse average weight 1200 lbs add another 500 lbs for tool box tools extra spare tires etc.. Total about 3 tons. I would not think you Jeep would weight much less than my 67 chev 1/2 ton pickup Pulled from Texas to Montana more than once. Maybe you could find a cheap good older pickup and use it. Aint got to be new to go have fun with.

[cardiacpaul]

to be cranky for a minute....

stepping the mast will take what, 30 minutes on a good day when all of the moons are aligned, to 2 hours, depending how many adult beverages are consumed before the task is completed.

In addition to stopping the whale behind you, have an 18-wheeler fly by at 70 mph and see what happens to the tow vehicle... can you say conga line?

Another thing... pulling the 2600lb to 4000lb beached whale out of the water on a greasy 20-30 degree ramp with 6 guys waiting to haul out their 40k, 19 ft bass boats ain't gonna be fun. I'm not saying you can't do it, i'm asking... wheres the fun?

[ilnadi]

First, there is a Catalina 25 site (http://www.catalina-capri-25s.org/default.asp) with hundreds of postings discussing Swing vs. Wing. Many people there have setups that allow them to step/unstep the mast single handed (ours is a wing-keel in a slip, so can't help you there).

Second, a C25 with engine, fuel, gear, water, trailer, etc is probably over 6500 lbs. Someone who trailers can give you a better number.

There are C250 water-ballast boats but they are newer and more expensive.

[sailingdog]

As I said in the other thread... it really has a lot to do with how simple the boat is to rig. If the boat is complicated to rig and takes too much time to do so, you won't sail it as often as a boat that is simple to rig and can be done in just a few minutes.

For instance, on my friend's Ranger, the mast takes an hour or more to rig. On another friend's trimaran, which is a bit larger, it takes about 20 minutes to rig, 30 if the mast is down. Needless to say, the trimaran is sailed a bit more...