Catalina 270

The Catalina 270 is a 27 ft masthead sloop with a fin keel or wing keel and a spade rudder, designed by Gerry Douglas and built by Catalina Yachts from 1992 to 2007 as the replacement for the Catalina 27. It kept the 27's family-cruiser market but with a much beamier hull, a private aft double cabin, a walk-through transom and an inboard diesel as standard. It won Cruising World's 1994 Boat of the Year award in the pocket cruiser (under 29 ft) category. Production was a fraction of the 27's: the owners' fleet registry puts the run at at least 359 hulls.

Catalina's own timeline records the 270 as unveiled in December 1992, replacing the C-27, whose 6,662-hull run had ended in 1991; a preliminary price list dated October 1992 offered a standard 270 at $29,985 and a 270 LE at $34,775. The c270.org registry shows 1994 and 1995 as the peak years, with more boats built in those two seasons than in the decade that followed, and hull #359 from 2006 as the newest registered boat; Good Old Boat and Practical Sailor give 2007 as the last year. Engines changed twice: a Perkins Perama M20 to 1995, a Westerbeke 20B Two from 1995 to 2000, then Yanmar 2GM20F and 3YM20 units to the end of production. The larger Catalina 28, first built in July 1991, was sold alongside it throughout.

Douglas drew a hull with generous beam carried to the sheer and a fine entry, which the brochure credits for deck space, reserve buoyancy and windward performance; the hull is solid fibreglass with a full inner liner, the deck is balsa-cored, and the external lead keel is bolted on with stainless bolts. Both the elliptical fin (5 ft) and elliptical wing (3 ft 6 in) keels are matched with a balanced elliptical spade rudder and pedestal wheel steering. The double-spreader masthead rig has fore-and-aft lowers and a narrow shroud base with the chainplates on the coachroof, leaving the side decks clear; a 135% furling genoa, single-line reefing, mid-boom sheeting on a traveller and halyards led aft were standard from the first price list. Practical Sailor found the boat very responsive, able to spin in its own length, and at least as stiff as the Beneteau First 265 in 20–25 knots; PHRF is about 198.

The layout is an aft galley to port with a two-burner gimballed stove, ice box and flip-up counter, a moulded one-piece head compartment with shower pan to starboard, a wrap-around settee around the compression post with a varnished teak table that stows forward, a V-berth that extends and closes off, and a private aft cabin with a double berth under the cockpit. Light comes from six opening ports, a forward hatch and skylight panels in the companionway seahood. Practical Sailor calls the interior practical but prosaic and lists a lack of stowage, a small galley worktop, a fussy forward-berth conversion and the steering-gear cover intruding into the aft berth as the drawbacks; owners say it suits two comfortably for a weekend to a week.

All 270s share one hull and rig, so the keel, the LE package and the aft-winch option are recorded as options rather than generations; no Mk II was ever built. The 1992 and 1996 order forms list the wing keel as standard and the fin at no charge, but databases and Wikipedia treat the 5 ft fin as the base boat, which is how the specs here are laid out, with the wing as an override. "LE" is an equipment level, not a different boat: the October 1992 price list shows it adding about $4,800 of gear (LPG stove, pressure hot water and heater, transom shower, shore power with charger, twin batteries, vang, Dutchman flaking, teak table, cushions, rail seats), and by the June 1996 equipment list all of it was standard and the LE name had disappeared, so a listing that says "270 LE" is a 1992–96 boat with that package. Wikipedia's "270 SD" simply denotes the shoal-draft wing keel.

Two specifications are quoted two ways. The 1992 preliminary spec sheet gives a 9 ft 3 in beam — identical to the J dimension printed on the same sheet — while Practical Sailor, sailboatdata and Wikipedia give 9 ft 10 in; the 9 ft 10 in figure is used here, since the sheet describes itself as approximate and the market figure agrees with the reviews. Displacement and ballast are 6,400/2,000 lb in the factory sheet, Good Old Boat and Wikipedia but 6,240/1,840 lb in Practical Sailor's fin-keel column; the factory figures are used. Practical Sailor's complaints are stowage, galley worktop, the forward-berth conversion and the steering-gear cover in the aft berth. Owner reviews add leaking opening-port gaskets, gelcoat voids, a cracked head base, sun-degraded line stoppers, a Dutchman system that struggles in heavy weather, a Perkins M20 that is dependable but rough-running, and one early Westerbeke fuel lift pump failure.

Practical Sailor quoted 1995 boats at $21,900–26,950 in 2020 and preferred the 270 to the Beneteau First 265 on price and standard equipment. Establish which engine is fitted (Perkins to 1995, Westerbeke 1995–2000, Yanmar from 2000 — the engine cover and companionway steps changed with it), which keel it carries, whether a 1992–96 hull has the LE equipment (pressure hot water, shore power, LPG stove), and whether the optional aft winches and outboard tracks were fitted. Check the opening-port seals, the keel bolts and the balsa deck around hardware; engine access is good, and owners rate it one of the boat's strengths. Active fleets are on the Great Lakes, inland lakes and the southern California coast.

The 270 shares the International Catalina 27/270 Association with the Catalina 27; Wikipedia records it as an active class club, and its discussion list runs on groups.io. A separate Catalina 270 owners site, c270.org, maintains the fleet registry, the production history used here and a popular-modifications index, and runs its own groups.io list. CatalinaOwners.com hosts eight owner reviews and a directory of 160 owners; one reviewer notes that Gerry Douglas personally answered his technical questions.