Catalina 27

The Catalina 27 is a 26 ft 10 in masthead-sloop fin keel coastal cruiser built by Catalina Yachts from 1971 to 1991, with 6,662 hulls — the largest production run of any 27-footer in US history. Designed by Frank Butler with Robert Finch, it was sold with standard or tall rig, deep or shoal keel, outboard well or inboard engine, and two interior layouts, which makes individual boats vary widely.

The 27 was Catalina's second model, following the 22; Catalina's own timeline lists its introduction in March 1970, with production and model years beginning in 1971. Roughly 1,500 were completed in the first three years and hull #6,000 was built in May 1985. It was also built under licence in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia by Cooper Enterprises for the Canadian market. The Catalina 270 replaced it in 1991.

Solid fibreglass hull with a plywood-cored deck, an external lead fin keel and an internally mounted spade rudder; early boats were tiller-steered with wheel steering offered later. Ballast is about 40% of displacement, so the boat is stiff for its size. Practical Sailor notes that early boats were considerably lighter (about 5,650 lb deep-keel/outboard) than the 6,850 lb of later inboard boats.

All configurations share one hull, so the tall rig (TM), shoal draft (SD), inboard engines and the dinette interior are recorded as options rather than generations. Sources disagree on the shoal draft: Wikipedia gives 3 ft 0 in, while Sailing Magazine and SpinSheet give 3 ft 5 in for the shoal keel introduced in 1979; the 3 ft figure is used here and the other is left pending. There is no Mk II Catalina 27; the Catalina 270 of 1991 is a different boat.

Practical Sailor and SpinSheet list: gelcoat crazing around stanchions and deck hardware, leaking chainplates and ports leading to bulkhead rot, hull-to-deck joint leaks, original gate-valve through-hulls, failed lower-shroud U-bolt chainplates, cast-aluminium spreader socket failures, poor fuel-tank installation on early inboards, and an icebox drain that runs back into the box when heeled. Inboard access under the cockpit is universally condemned.

Prices run from a few thousand dollars for tired early boats to the high teens for late diesel examples. The Atomic 4 is well supported but its access is poor, so assume neglected maintenance; the Petter diesel is grossly underpowered. Check chainplates, spreader sockets, through-hulls, deck around hardware, and whether the boat has the traditional or dinette interior, since the dinette suits a family and the traditional layout suits a couple.