Endurance Cruising in a C22

[dsprague]

Has anyone had experience with long distance cruising in a small boat? What would need to be done to make a C22 strong enough for a prudent sailor to circumnavigate in? Mine is a fixed wing keel and in excellent condition.

[Jeff_H]

I assume you are requesting information about trying to do a world circumnavigation in a Catalina 22. With all due respect, the Catalina 33 is a very nice little coastal cruiser but it is in no way designed to be a distance cruiser. It would take so much to make it a distance cruiser that I think you could sell the boat and buy a boat that is more suitable for much less.

If you think about what is involved in making a 22 foot light weight coastal cruiser into an offshore boat I think you will see what I mean. Small boats move more slowly than large boats so you need a lot more water and supplies for each leg. You need storm sails and light air sails since you can''t carry enough fuel to motor through large areas of light air or storms. Then there are issues of providing electic power. Minimally you need to operate running lights but the reality is that you will probably have instrumentation, autopilot and communication equipment. That suggests that you are probably beyond what can be handled with solar cells. So then you have a generator and the fuel involved.

The Catalina 22 was designed for normal coastal cruising weights aboard. You have really upped the weight on the boat. So now you need more sail area to drive the heavier weights. You need bigger rigging to the higher ocean and sail loads. Then you need to beef up the hull at rigging load points. Then you need to build in proper storage for the extra water tanks, gear and supplies. Then you need more ballast as the boat cannot accelerate out of a gust and so will be more tender. And so on and so forth before you are just about building a new boat since little of the original boat will be left intact. Frankly it would be easier to build a purpose built boat than to go through the amount or work that it would require to make a Catalina 22 suitable for the kind of thing you are proposing.

I am not trying to put you down here. I think it is important that you keep dreaming because dreams are what keep our souls alive, but I think you may need to redirect your dream toward a boat that is more suitable for your purposes.

Respectfully
Jeff