I grew up sailing with my family on a Catalina 27 on Lake Erie. Dad bought the boat when I was 5 years old, and we sailed it all over Western Lake Erie until I was in High School. While we had the boat, Herb (a good friend of our family) would come sailing with us and he loved to sail that C27. After Herb had sailed with us for a few years, he decided to buy his own boat... so he bought a Catalina 22. He sailed it a few times, but it just wasn't the same as sailing with us on our Catalina 27.
Times had gotten tough for our family... It was 1991 and my dad was laid off... so he was seeking to get rid of the slip fee and storage fees for the boat. So, he sold the Catalina 27 to Herb, and part of the deal was that Dad got the Catalina 22. Herb parked the C22 in our yard, we put a cover on it, and it was forgotten for 7 years.
After 7 years, I had graduated from school and was working in Chattanooga. There was a lake nearby that I visited... Chickamauga Lake... and I noticed sailboats on it. It brought the thought of that Catalina 22 to my mind... so I called Dad and asked if I could take the boat and use it. After all, it wasn't doing any good just sitting in the yard under a cover. He agreed, and so he re packed the bearings on the trailer and got everything in order so I could come pick it up. So, on Memorial Day Weekend in 1998, I drove up to Ohio and picked up the boat.
I left Ohio with the boat on Sunday, and 2 hours into my trip, my pickup truck started to lose power. I found myself at a truckstop just North of Columbus. It was cold and I didn't have money for a hotel room... so the very first time I slept on the boat was that night... on the hard, at a truckstop just North of Columbus. I didn't have blankets, so I used the jib instead. The next morning I tried to start my truck, and voila! It started! So I resumed my journey and made it through Cincinnati... to a little town in Kentucky called Dry Ridge. In Dry Ridge, the truck gave up and wouldn't be revived. It was Monday... Memorial Day... and nothing was open to fix my truck, so I gave in and got a hotel room and waited until the next day. I had to call my boss to tell him that I wasn't going to make it into the office on Tuesday. The next morning, the dealership opened and replaced my oxygen sensor. They sent me on my way and everything seemed to be fine. Until about 2 hours later when I approached London, Kentucky. All my problems came back again and the truck broke down for a third time. The local dealership couldn't get the truck fixed that day, so I had to call my boss and tell him that I wouldn't be at work on Wednesday. I got another hotel room for the night, and wondered if this is the way boat ownership is for everyone. Finally, I left London, Kentucky on Wednesday and made it home to Chattanooga. I'd put nearly $1000 on my credit card for truck repairs and hotel rooms in a matter of 4 days.
When I arrived in Chattanooga, I had a bottom job done on it, and then one day a buddy and I decided to launch it. So, I took it to Chickamauga Lake and got her all rigged & ready. It only took me 3 hours! After the boat was all rigged, I realized that when my dad fixed the surge brakes, he hard-tied the brakes to the tongue unit and I couldn't extend the tongue. I figured that if we couldn't extend the tongue, then we wouldn't be able to launch, so we packed the boat up again and drove home. It wasn't until 2 or 3 years later that I realized that it's not always necessary to extend the tongue. Heck, I knew how to sail, but sure didn't know how to tow a trailered boat!
So I had the surge unit fixed and the following weekend we launched the boat and went for a sail... and I realized then why Herb had wanted the Catalina 27. The Catalina 27 had been rigged to race, so it was very easy to sail. This Catalina 22 was a bare bones model and it was not laid out to be EASY. The shackles were not the captive pin type, and on my first outing I lost 2 of them overboard. I couldn't figure out how to get the motor to tilt up out of the water, so we sailed with the propeller rotating constantly. Chop, chop, chop. The keel cable hummed and the sound of it unnerved me. I bumped the bottom twice and the motor wouldn't work when it was time to pull the boat out again. We managed to get the boat back on the trailer again... and after everything was put away and I was headed home, I remember thinking to myself... "That was FUN!"
Looking back on this now, I have to wonder: "Am I nuts?" And that's the story of how I got my Catalina 22!
RJ
Tazelaar 2004