Home Boat

Boat

    Most popular

    Hotel Catalina NMEA 2000 network diagram

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0

    My NMEA 2000 network is still pretty small, but I think it’s the good time to start to document it.

    Right now we have:

    • Airmar DST800: through hull depth, speed and water temperature information
    • Airmar P79: in-hull depth information
    • B&G Zeus 2: MFD at the navigation table
    • KBOX: wifi gateway and more
    • Maretron TLM 100: monitoring main water tank consumption
    • B&G Triton 2: main info from the network at the helm

    I already ordered my AIS transceiver, so I guess it will be the next equipment I will have to add to this diagram.

    Few more items I see adding in the future:

    • LCJ CV7 wind instruments (looks to complicated for now, would love to have it, but doesn’t see to justify to get the mast down to add it right now – 2019 plan?)
    • Actisense EMU-01 or NoLand RS11 engine monitoring, only a gadget, but gadgets are so fun 🙂

    Cabin teak floor varnishing

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0

    The 2 cabin boards near the engine came with the boat in a pretty bad shape, they were in need of some love. I decided the risk was very low to exercise my varnishing skills on these boards. The result happened to be way better than I expected.

    Update March 2019. After this rainy winter and couple of leaks, it’s time to do the forward cabin floor board.

    Tools & Chemicals

    Preparation

    • Pour the stripper on to the wood in a puddle
    • Spread it initially with a brush
    • Allow the stripper to “work” for 10-15 minutes
    • Start to scrape with a 3″ flat putty knife
    • Pile up the stripper/old varnish in the middle of the board
    • Use a couple larger putty knives to remove the stripper/old Varnish
    • Dispose of it in a shoebox with a plastic bag liner.
    • Repeat the entire process anywhere from 3 to 5 more times.
    • Once all or most of the varnish was removed clean the wood with acetone
    • Allow to dry overnight and clean the wood with acetone again
    • After completely drying lightly sand the wood with 220 grit paper
    • Wipe it down with acetone again
    • At this point it is ready for epoxy / varnish

    Update March 2019. I replaced CitriStrip with Klean Strip for the forward board, way easier to apply.

    Epoxy / Varnishing

    Start with 4 coats of clear coat of epoxy. I usually apply the 4 coats of epoxy in less of 48 hours.

    Continue with 4 coats of undiluted Epifanes Varnish.

    Update March 2019. 2 years later the Epifanes Varnish was still ok, but added a bit of mineral spirit before to apply it.

    New genoa for our Catalina 36

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0

    Old sails

    When we bought Hotel Catalina 6 months ago, we realized during the survey our genoa was very tired after discussion with the previous owner he agreed to give us a discount for this and give another used genoa supposed to be in a better shape, so we wanted her and we took our chance on this.

     

    Unfortunately both genoa happened to be very tired.

    Few sails later with both genoa we decided it was time to upgrade.

    After some research, we found http://www.hydesailsdirect.com/. Having a high production boat and a good feeling when I called Judy at Hyde Sail Direct, we decided to go this route and order our new head sail!

    So it was time to order a new sail, it took around 6 weeks between the first conversation and the time the sail showed up.

    Hyde Sails Direct order timing

    • 10/28/2016:
      • 10% Deposit
      • Additional payment of $1373.00 (70%) is due when the order is submitted to production.
      • Final payment of $392.88 is due upon completion.
      • Measurement forms and kit sent.
    • 11/07/2016:
      • completed our home work and uploaded to Hyde Sails Direct dropbox repository
    • 11/08/2016:
      • Finale phone conversation with the team at Hyde Sails Direct and few update to my order
      • Additional payment
    • 11/16/2016:
      • Order has been submitted to production.
      • Estimate ship date is 12/07-12/09
    • 11/23/2016:
      • measuring kit has been returned
    • 12/07/2016:
      • Order is complete and has been shipped. Expected delivery is Friday or Saturday. Please watch your inbox for a tracking email and your Hyde Guide to Sailcare.
      • Paid in Full

    Hyde Sails bill

    Measurement

    Time to test the new sail

     

    Catalina 36 pre-purchase survey

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0
    Hotel Catalina 2016 survey
    Hotel Catalina 2016 survey
    It’s done! We made an offer and it got accepted, after few months to research our Catalina 36, we finally decided the one we like! Hotel Catalina 🙂
    It’s now time to find a surveyor, for now a couple of months I have been reading religiously Catalina 36 International Association forum in every details. This very active website was also one more positive thing I like about this specific boat model.
    After asking on the forum multiple people advised me to use Ross Hubbard (http://www.maritimesurveyors.com/). After few calls and emails I was able to setup a meeting in Long Beach with Ross to go over the health of Hotel Catalina.
    The time with Ross is set for 8:30AM in front of the shoreline yacht club in Long Beach (386 E Shoreline Dr, Long Beach, CA 90802). The boat is on the “Y” dock, right behind the yacht club.
    Everyone was on time!
    The whole experience of the survey was great, I learned a lot.
    You can find the write up of the survey enclosed below:
    Seing myself at pretty handy, I am not totally against an educational project and so far what I saw with Hotel Catalina doesn’t seem too huge to fix, but of course I want to get it to the right fair price. So I have been using the survey to estimate the cost and the owner made some efforts to fix few items and match a fair price.
    During all the process, I think it would have been nice to have an access to soldboats.com. If one day I buy another boat, I will definitely make sure I get a full access to this database to get a better idea of the market.

    Here more pictures from the haul out.

    Hotel Catalina Delivery from Long Beach to Marina Del Rey

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0
    weather4d routing
    weather4d routing

    It took us few weeks to close the deal and come on an agreement with the previous owner, but now we are officially the owners of Hotel Catalina, the Catalina 36 #883!

    We have till the end of the month of May to take delivery of the boat and move it to Marina Del Rey. These 10 days were very very short to complete all the tasks required before to take delivery of the boat.

    • Title transfer
    • Insurance
    • Slip

    Yes, it’s definitely the time to find a slip available in Marina Del Rey for a 36 foot long boat. What we thought would be pretty easy was way more difficult than expected. After dozens of calls, we found 2 potential slips where we could dock our new to us boat.

    We also needed to get the insurance, this was pretty straight forward and we went with BoatUS.

    It’s Memorial Day week-end, let’s take delivery of Hotel Catalina with the help of our broker, Doug.

    weather4d routing

    6AM we are in Long Beach ready to board Hotel Catalina. At the time we  started to move Hotel Catalina from Long Beach to Marina Del Rey, we still didn’t have received an official response from Esprit Marina Del Rey authorizing us to move in. Let’s go! The backup alternative will be to dock at the yard and get some of maintenance work done.

    On our way from Long Beach to Marina Del Rey, we have a pretty smooth motor sailing with only the main up since our genoa is not in a very good shape and any way the wind very low. Now out since a couple of hours we got a positive response from Esprit dock master.

    Six hours later, we are now officially docked at Marina Del Rey B1620!

    Galley and Head LED lights update

    By
    Ludovic Francois
    -
    0

    After couple of fluorescent tube decided to stop working, we decided to upgrade the couple fixture with modern looking one.

    FOLLOW US

    0FansLike
    126FollowersFollow

    WEATHER

    Marina del Rey
    clear sky
    20.1 ° C
    22.4 °
    19 °
    88 %
    0.9kmh
    0 %
    Tue
    26 °
    Wed
    28 °
    Thu
    32 °
    Fri
    35 °
    Sat
    34 °

    POPULAR ARTICLES

    POPULAR CATEGORIES

    Follow us on Instagram @sailinghotelcatalina

    Follow our boating adventure around Southern California on Sailing Hotel Catalina. We will provide you info on our cruises, our Catalina 36 maintenances and our live abord.
    Contact us: [email protected]

    POPULAR POSTS

    POPULAR CATEGORY