Catalina 350 International Association

The operating manual says you should use regular furniture polish on the teak interior, and I finally got around to it when cleaning up for winter storage. I used Pledge lemon with dust-repellent. It took an hour or so, but well worth it. Everything looks brand new! You might want to give it a try.

My 350's slip is a bit narrow, which has made me dock bow-in to avoid hitting the finger pier. The only pain has been undoing the lifelines, those split rings are a real hassle, especially in the dark! I finally called our local rigger today, and asked him to put pelican hooks on the bow ends of the...

Gary, I agree completely, it's not an all-winter solution. My concern was for nights that got down to 28-30 degrees, when the temps during the day are about 55 and the water temp is still over 50. By getting air into the lines, I'm less worried about a short-term freeze - especially for the cockpit ...

I kept the boat in the water longer this year, and worried that some nights when I wasn't there, it was getting quite cold. I happened to use up the water in the aft tank one weekend, and quite by accident it dawned on me that I could keep that tank empty, and use it to blow the water out of all my ...

After my wife and I have suffered many scraped shins from the companionway door edge, I finally came out with a solution. Take a piece of 3/4" ID clear plastic hose, and cut along one side. Take off the stainless strip from the lower edge of the companionway, and match it up to one edge of the ...

I replaced my 4D batteries after only two seasons (and two winters), because I wasn't getting half the amp hours they were rated. I think two winters without charging sulfated them up. I replaced them with 4 220AH golf cart batteries (from Sam's club, great deal). I also added a separate starter bat...

That sounds fast, I think I get 5.2 kts at 2500. You may be over-reving the engine a bit. This makes sense, because I think white smoke is a sign of engine overloading.

I sailed upwind up the Rappahannock River for about 6 hours last weekend, in 10-12 knots of wind, with 6 boats of various kinds ahead and 12 behind. All day long I slowly gained on those ahead, and pulled ahead of those behind, all except for one black-hulled boat that paced me pretty well. When my ...

My Raymarine guy will be glad, too. He has been telling Raymarine that it is a course computer problem, but they have been unconvinced. Good point about coming into the slip - that must have been a fright! I'll turn it off from now on!

When I installed a washdown pump, I discovered the joint between the hull and the forestay tang was leaking. When I hosed down the anchor locker, I found a trickle of water coming from the limber hole into the forward storage locker under the v-berth; and when I reached my hand through the access po...

My wife always complained how long it took me to adjust the docklines when we would head for home on Sunday night. I decided to mark them, so I wouldn't have to fuss with them so much every time. My slip is too narrow to back in, so I am bow in, and when I get to the boat, I have to adjust the lines...

I went a bit nutty trying to get rid of a bad smell in the head, but no amount of cleaning helped. Then it dawned on me, I hadn't looked in the shower sump! Ugh, that's where the smell was. Now I regularly rinse the sump with fresh water and add some "CP Cleans Potties" to it, and there is...

My boat is less than a year old, but the autopilot has had a bad problem. All is well for about 2 hours, and then I get a "NO PILOT" message, a beep, and the wheel locks! To steer again, you have to turn off the autopilot at the breaker. After about 10 minutes, you can turn it back on agai...

For those of you who have put off servicing your Maxwell VW800 windlass, don't! It's really, really easy. I was intimidated by parts flying all over, but there are really not that many parts. And keeping the clutch cones greased will keep them from freezing up. The main reason I opened mine was when...

After reading a Mainsheet article about installing a washdown pump, I decided to install one. But there were a few things in the article I didn't like. The T into the head intake was down below the waterline near the seacock, the intake filter was too hard to reach down near the seacock, the pump wa...