From the Captain
By Dale Mack, Catalina 22 Fleet 20 Captain
Crocus, #8244, celtic-myst@comcast.net

With our above average rainfall in January, I was wondering if it was ever going to stop raining.  On the positive side, the snowpack looks good, so water levels on the river this season shouldn't be a worry.

Sorry for the delay is getting out the newsletter.  Laura and I were hit with the flu and it completely wiped us out.  Twenty-days after first symptoms we are still only back to feeling 85% of normal.  The flu also cost us our trip to the Seattle Boat Show that we had been looking forward to for so long.

Yikes!  It's February and I haven't rebedded the windows on Crocus yet.  With all the rain, I've decided to just proceed with the project anyway while the boat has a trap over it.  Now Don Bateson and I just have to find a free weekend when our schedules align.

I've been considering adding roller furling to Crocus.  My two leading contenders are the CDI Flexible Furler FF2 and Schaefer's Snapfurl CF-500.  Digging through the archived roller furling discussions at Catalina Direct, both systems seem to get good reviews by their owners.  I'd love to hear from you if you have any experience with either system.  Cruising Direct is one of the Internet sources I've been looking at as I compare prices.

What Happen to the February Spinnaker Clinic?

Another causality of the flu was my ability to pull together the spinnaker clinic before the end of February.  I've rescheduled the classroom session for Saturday, March 8th.  I apologize for any inconvenience the new date causes anyone.  Look for details regarding the clinic later in the newsletter.  A dockside and possible on-the-water session(s) will be available in April.  The classroom session will NOT be a prerequisite for the outdoor sessions although it will help.

Welcome to Fleet 20

Please join me in welcoming our newest members to Fleet 20:

Brian and Joy Davis of Portland, Oregon

Domeji'to, #4217, Swing Keel

For Sale or Want to Buy

As we prepare to head into the new season, several C22 enthusiasts are starting to list their boats and equipment on the Fleet 20 website.  As a service to Catalina 22 owners, Fleet 20 will provide you six months of free advertising on on the fleet's website.  If you know of someone looking for a boat or someone wishing to sell their boat feel free to point them at www.c22pdx.org.

Spring Cleaning

Ah, Spring is just around the corner and the marina is starting to fill with the sounds of power washers. Funny how the northwest climate turns the north side of your boat into a science project (no this picture isn't Crocus.  My C22 sits at home under a tarp during the winter, so I avoid a big Spring recommissioning project.

In 2007 I brought back the luster of Crocus' hull, and one of the benefits has been that the hull stays cleaner and is easier to clean when it needs it.  I can't say the same about the chalky cabin top.  Even though the boat has been under a tarp this winter, I've been watching the black mold grow.  The stuff comes off easy enough with a power washer, but I'm definitely looking forward to tackling the oxidation on the cabin top so things will stay cleaner longer in the future.

Portland Boat Show
2008 brings a new look
By Dale Mack

Despite living in the shadow of the Seattle Boat Show, the Portland Boat Show continues to deliver on its promise to cover water recreation from sailing to houseboats, and trawlers to personal watercraft.  Of particular interest to Catalina enthusiasts was the return of Catalina Yachts to the show.  Since River City Sailing acquired the Catalina Yachts dealership in 2007, this was their first year to reacquaint the public to some of Catalina's latest.  As an owner of both a Catalina 22 and a Catalina 30, RCS's choice to bring a C309 (the replacement for the C30) to the show was an added bonus.

Beyond the boats and gear, the other part of the show I enjoy is running into friends and sailing acquaintances.  When other commitments prevented me from visiting the show on the weekend and thus kept me from attending Fleet 20's pre-show breakfast, I resigned myself to visiting the show during the week.  Much to my surprise I still ran into no less than twenty people I knew.

For those that didn't get to the show this year, here's a photo essay to give you a taste of what was there.

River City Sailing's Catalina Yachts display	The Sailing Life's display
Alerion Express 28	Wall to wall aluminum fishing craft
Ski Boats	Houseboat from www.shastalake.net
2006 National Champion	Wooden boat building at www.riverswest.org
Modern sleek cruisers	The electric powered Edison

Are You Interested in Racing this Year?
By Dale Mack

Whether your goal is to race in all the local C22 one-design events this year or to only make a couple, I look forward to seeing you out there.  For those that haven't tried their hand at racing yet I encourage you to come out and have fun just getting your boat around a set course.  Not sure if racing is for you?  Talk to me about crewing opportunities where you can experience racing first-hand without the pressure of being the skipper.

Here is the list of folks that have expressed an interest in racing their boats this season:

1. Chris Brown (Ta-Keel-Ah, #108)
2. Dan Dugan (Harmony, #14286)
3. Scott Ferre (Promiseland, #12982)
4. Don Woodhouse (Togarty, #7260)
5. Dale Mack (Crocus, #8244)

Fleet 20's racing page has a lot of information on local racing.  Everything from the entry form to the sailing instructions for each race are available.  The material targeted at the race committee is very informative because it explains in simple straight forward language what the race committee is doing to start and finish races.

You can download the presentation I created for teaching the SYSCO Race Clinic.

http://home.comcast.net/~sailpdx3/RaceClinic.pdf  (2.3 mb)

The presentation teaches you most of what you need to know to race on the Columbia River that isn't in the Racing Rules of Sailing.

Please let me know if you are planning to race.

Sailing the Sea of Cortez in a Catalina 22
Part 6 of 7:  Agua Verde to San Evaristo
By Don Woodhouse, Togarty, #7260

Leaving Agua Verde there were a few rocks and reefs that had to be negotiated in order to head south. There was the entrance we used from the north past Roca Solitare, the finger of rock covered with guano that is the primary landmark, but the sea was calm and the reefs were visible so south it was.

The pattern of steep mountains to deep seas continued as we motored along. The usual light northerly developed for some good sailing. The mountains were full of colorful strata giving it a look like the Grand Canyon. We began to see a few more boats on the water signifying we were nearing La Paz and civilization, but still, we were on a coastline that was far removed from any roads and there were just a few fishcamps at small beaches.

It took all day to reach San Evaristo, a well protected bay with 8 or 10 boats at anchor, and many fishermen's shacks. We anchored up near a little Flicka and checked our stores for a dinner. I had some pasta and ingredients for Alfredo sauce. I was hoping to buy some scallops on the beach, but we hadn't spent much time ashore in any place that had vendors. The schedule had been a bit grueling, making as much as 45 miles a day meant getting going at first light and sailing until dusk. We usually made dinner, cleaned up the mess and were soon to bed. So canned tuna took the place of fresh scallops (and not very well).

The next day was to be a short one to Isla Partida. I was excited about getting close to home and Wayne had been to the area before on a chartered dive boat. Boats filled with divers make the run from the capital city of La Paz out to Isla Espiritu Santos and the surrounding islands. One of the main attractions are the sea lions that play in the waters near the rocks at the north tip. Wayne had dove to an area about 20 feet deep and the sea lion pups would frolic overhead as the divers watched from below.

Isla Partida was formed from the main island , Espiritu Santos, when a volcanic crater collapsed and a narrow channel was opened to the sea on each side. This created a deep bay surrounded by the high crater walls and a perfect protected anchorage. We sailed all the way into the mouth of the bay and anchored in 15 feet of water. I was anxious to dingy ashore to explore.

Before entering the bay we had cell phone coverage and Wayne called home. We thought if we could climb high enough on the crater we might get service again. After exploring the fish camp and seeing the little channel that separated the two islands we began to climb. The climb was tougher that it had looked, becoming steep with loose volcanic rock. We abandoned the plan to climb to the top and returned to the dingy.

As the sun was setting a flock of pelicans was really working the bait near shore. It was amazing watching them plunge over and over again into the school of fish. Each bird would fly just high enough to turn and make another dive, repeating the process over and over again until dark. A huge amount on energy expended compared to the ones I have seen hanging around the fish camps and begging for scraps. I guess our life onboard Togarty was pretty easy in this tough land.

Routing Power to the Mast for Accessories
How to get power for an anchor light and a deck light
By Dale Mack

If you have an old-style C22 (1969-1985) and you want to add an anchor light and a deck light to the steaming light you already have on the mast, then you'll have to make some choices about how to get switch-controlled power to the new accessories.

If you want the switch located at the factory installed panel location, then you run into the problem of only having a single pair of positive and negative 12 volt DC wires running to the mast for control of the streaming light.  To get around this issue, you'll have to run new wires from the panel to the mast for the accessories.

An alternative approach to running new wire to the base of the mast is to convert the current streaming light wires to serve the needs of all the accessories you wish to install on the mast.  This do-it-your tip was shown to me by Don Woodhouse of Togarty (#7260).

Don took the streaming light wires an ran them to a 3-switch panel he installed near the mast post in the cabin.  The white wire in the cabin photo above is Don's VHF antenna cable running to the mast.

From the new 3-swtich panel Don has individual control of all of his mast mounted lighting accessories.  Another advantage of this approach is that switches aren't at risk of being damage when people enter or exit the cabin as is the case with the factory installed control on old-styles.  You may also notice in the close-up photo of the switches that each rocker-switch is equipped with a pilot light to indicate whether the switch is on or off.

Checkout these links to Northwest Catalina newsletters and local racing:

• Columbia River All Catalina Association (CRACA)
• Sail Portland (hosted by Oregon Corinthian Sailing Association, OCSA)
• Small Yacht Sailing Club of Oregon (SYSCO)
• Oregon Women's Sailing Association (OWSA)
• Catalina Association of Tacoma and South South (CATSS)
• Catalina Association of Puget South (CAPS out of Seattle)

February

• Open House:  16, SYSCO Open House at RCYC

March

• Clinic:  8 (sa), Fleet 20 Spinnaker Clinic (classroom session)
• Clinic:  12, OCSA Race Management Clinic
• Clinic:  27 - 28, SYSCO Race Clinic

See the calendar

Home / Newsletter / Calendar / Racing / Cruising / Photos / Tech Tips / How to Join / Links

The Fleet 20 newsletter is published online once a month.  Articles are the opinions of the
authors and don't necessarily represent the consensus of Fleet 20.