Factory Liaison

[Whitehook]

I am happy to announce that Bill Cullen has agreed to act as the official factory liaison for our C350 Association and he will be working with our tech editor Skip Penizotto to bring common owner issues to Catalina and to report back on the factory’s findings. Bill has a good background for this type of work and is also located close to the Catalina factory which could be another benefit.

One of the concerns of the association’s officers is that this type of activity could be misinterpreted by some potential new owners as an indication that there are problems with the boat but nothing could be further from the truth. I have talked to a large number of owners and heard from many more and I know that the overall owner satisfaction rating is as high as or higher than any boat in its class and I am sure that it will continue to climb. All new models of cars, planes, and boats go through factory changes and improvements over the years and the intention of this program is to facilitate Catalina identifying any issues that may be common to more than a few owners and also to bring back information on any improvements that Catalina may choose to implement on their new boats and that we may choose to incorporate on our existing boats. This will help Catalina identify areas that will allow them to build a better boat and it will help sell more C350s which in turn will increase the value of our boats so this should be a win-win proposition for everyone involved.

It is easy for the discussions on our website to be misinterpreted by non-owners so I would like to ask everyone to please work with Bill and the Association in a positive and constructive fashion going forward and I am sure that we will all benefit from this more coordinated approach.


Greg Klocek
Commodore C350IA

[Allsail]

"It is easy for the discussions on our website to be misinterpreted by non-owners so I would like to ask everyone to please work with Bill and the Association in a positive and constructive fashion going forward and I am sure that we will all benefit from this more coordinated approach. "

Greg... The foregoing is exactly why we need the effort the Association has initiated and why we have been asking for this. This is a win-win, as u said, for Catalina and the owners. Catalina has fewer owners to deal with, including more facts and less rhetoric, hopefully.
Moreover, hanging the dirty linen out hurts Catalina and the current owners, especially from a resale/pride perspective. But if all people see is the classic slow roll then they get frustrated, and to a potential buyer it sounds like a disaster.

I have few a more thoughts that probably should be handled by PM.

How should information/thoughts be shared with Mr. Cullen.

Thanks for your efforts. PS... It is a real nice sailing vessel!!

[Whitehook]

I would ask everyone to please click on the "PM", or private message button to communicate with Bill. Please be sure to always include your name, and your hull number in each message so that we know that your are a current owner. Bill will summarize and report back to the rest of us using the normal forum categories. We will probably be cleaning up some of the forum categories and messages in the future as the program develops. Thanks in advance for your support and cooperation.

[Tim April IV]

Greg - I hope that when you say "cleaning up some of the forums" you are referring to providing some Catalina-like responses to some of the discussion, and not to eliminating any of the posts/discussion that already exists.

Over the course of the last three years of ownership, and through the various online avenues of discussion, a number of topics have arisen that I would have hoped would have been addressed in a somewhat more formal fashion by Catalina. To my recollection, only the vibration/cavitaion item that some boats experience has been acknowledged, and even though answers and feedback were promised, it seemed to me that we got occasional peeks at a "trial and error" approach, rather than any sort of professional response.

Don't get me wrong, I really like my boat, think I got a great boat for the dollar, and I only experience a few minor annoyances, but I do follow a number of forums and frankly, I get the strong impression that Catalina Yachts probably isn't as responsive to issues as they ought to be.

All that being said, I applaud getting somebody from the Association that will be a factory liaison, I just hope to start seeing some Manufacturer's feedback to some of the things discussed.

[Whitehook]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the chance to expand on this issue.

Buy "cleaning up" I mean getting rid of extraneous posts from non-owners and multiple posts from a single owner who has nothing new to add to a subject but just likes to repeatedly complain in public. Ranting and venting will not be tolerated but nothing will be removed if it can possibly add to the historical understanding of the scope or magnitude of any issue. Our Association website and associated forums and e-mail lists have a high public profile and the objective is to make them as constructive and useful as possible without minimizing any issue or concern. We all say that we love our boats but I am not sure that that is always the overall impression that an outsider or potential owners gets when they look at our site. One needs only to look at some of the other Catalina Association sites to see how much more positively and proactively some owners can deal with their issues. In short I hope that we can focus more on solutions and less on complaining in the future. However, don't look for any changes too soon as this will require volunteer effort.

Greg Klocek