Catalina 350 International Association

It is with heavy heart and great sadness that I report the passing of our beloved Coquillage. She was mortally wounded by Hurricane Sally and is beached just west of Landfall Marina in Pensacola, FL. She is lying on her port side with keel buried in sand and leaning about 30 degrees. Her stern point...

When I had black dust in the starboard aft engine area, it was due to a failing damper plate. The dust was coming out an inspection or timing hole in the bell housing starboard side. You can check by putting tape over the hole, cleaning the old dust, and seeing if you get new dust. If not, good chan...

I developed a similar problem on my 2005 C350 a couple of years ago. My solution was to tie a line to main’s outhaul block, run the line along the boom, over a spare sheave at the boom end, back through the boom inside, down to a small block installed at the mast bottom, through a spare port side sh...

I have a Schafer 2100 jib furler and the two 1/4-20 captive cap screws which hold the cage together failed. The cage is the four prongs that surround the drum. The head broke off each screw, maybe from over tightening at some point or maybe crevice corrosion. I was lucky to not loose the cages overb...

I had the same problem. It was the light switch. I just pressed and released the switch many times to clean the contacts which worked. A better solution might be to remove and properly clean the contacts or replace the switch.

Peter,

Do you ever get a low oil red light that glows bright enough that you can easily see it in the daytime?

Does anyone have a low oil pressure buzzer that sounds and a red light that glows when the key is turned on but before the preheat plugs are engaged or the engine is cranked? If so, is the buzzer sound pulsing and loud enough to get your attention and is the red light bright enough to see in the day...

I plan to add two additional stern cleats to my C350 and position them somewhat outboard of and above the air vent scopes. The purpose is to cross-tie without running lines around the vertical stanchions supporting the perch seats. I would appreciate any words of wisdom or comments and pictures abou...

I would like to add a very strong bow eye to my boat for attaching my snubber when anchoring for storms. One possibility is to somehow use the forestay tang attachment mechanism. Perhaps replacing one of the bolts with a bow eye bolt or building a new exterior plate with a bow eye welded on. I would...

Gary, My prop whine was only when motoring or motorsailing and only in the 1600-1900 rpm range. There was no whine in reverse, none with the prop engaged when tied to the dock, and was not affected by having the sails up or down. When motoring, if I rapidly increased rpm from below 1600 to somewhere...

I finally solved my high pitch whine problem which began immediately after my last bottom job. The whine was from the propeller and caused by the bottom paint on the outside edge of the prop. After checking everything possible including the dripless seal and transmission to prop shaft alignment, I c...

Ray,
My C350, hull #350 came with a factory installed microwave per the picture below. It is a GE, Model JE620WF001, Serial RG900136B, manufactured in August 2004. It is 18"W, 9 5/8"H, 14"D , is 120v and is a great unit with a turntable. Hope this

George, See my post titled Osprey Repellant under topic Add-ons and improvements regarding how I handle my osprey problem. As noted in the post, the threaded rod needs to be longer than shown in the photo. After that post, I changed the 12 inch rod to one 17 inches long and all seems fine. That allo...

As promised, detailed below are the procedures I used to remove, service and reinstall my AC unit. Obviously these are specific to my boat and AC unit. I have hull number 350 and my AC is a Cruisair SXR16 which was discontinued several years ago. AC Unit Removal 1. In lazarette, remove 4" hose ...

Brett, Your engine alignment instructions are great. You did a fantastic job describing the spatial alignment needed and how to achieve it. This will become a permanent part of my maintenance kit. Thanks a million. I'm out-of-touch for the next two weeks and it will be about three weeks before I can...

Brett, I would certainly like to have your engine alignment instructions. That will be my next project but can't do until early June. Any thoughs about the the water flow rate I had through my dripless seal. It seems high to me. My email is jerryross07@cs.com. Thanks in advance for the alignment ins...

Brett, Thanks for the tips but I might have a different system than you. I have a dripless shaft seal that has water input from the raw water pump and the water input hose has an anti-siphon break. I removed the water input hose from the dripless seal and got a pencil size stream of water flowing ou...

Below are some photos of a contraption I built and installed to try and prevent ospreys from sitting on my mast head equipment. It consists of a ¾"x¾"x9 ½" base and a ¼-20 threaded rod about 13" long with a PVC plumbing plug and cap mounted on top. Several long and short thin iro...

Gary, I believe I can now remove my AC unit in two hours or less but I know exactly how to do so and would not have to spend time studying anything. I will send you the procedures when I have time. I suggest you allow two hours plus one hour contingency to remove your unit, assuming it is exactly li...

Gary, In total I probably spent 24-36 work hours on this project. However, that included several false starts and time trying to figure out how to accomplish specific steps. Second time around would probably take about 8 work hours. I have some pencil notes about how I removed the AC unit from the b...