Refit of Elektra, a 1988 Catalina 30


Newport Beach in February 2005

The teak was left un-varnished since new

Lots of silicone sealant that was a real pain to get off

The Hood roller furling was broken in half during the trip up from Newport

Elektra is the 5341st 30 foot hull produced by Catalina Yachts of Woodland Hills, California. She is my second Catalina 30.

The 1988 Catalina 30 is one of the first of the production line to incorporate the Mark II design changes and one of the first to use a wing keel. I really like the Mark II because it incorporates the minor design improvements derived from the experience of producing the 5000 or so MKI Catalina 30s but it still retains the beautiful teak wood which was later replaced with plastic and stainless in the Mark III design change.

I purchased her from her original owner in Newport Beach, California in February of 2005. She had been lightly used by her original owner but also lightly maintained. She spent the first 11 years of her life in Lake Michigan and, in 1999, was trucked to Newport Beach, California. The engine only had 400 hours since new, the hull and gelcoat were in excellent condition, and the standing rigging and sails were in pretty good shape also.

Due to the lack of equipment I decided to have her trucked up from Newport to Svendsen's in Alameda. The trip went well except for a broken roller furler while in transit. The trucking company took care of the expense of replacing the roller furler and I installed a Harken MKIII Unit 1 furler in place of the Hood furler that came standard with the boat when it was new.

The exterior teak was in really bad shape for it's age. The owner says he only applied oil to the teak over the life of the boat but it looked like he had just let it weather. Unfortunately this stuff is really expensive to replace.. The newer Mark III Catalinas have eliminated most of the exterior teak in favor of plastic and stainless. As a result replacement is really hard because each piece basically has to be made by hand from a template so we decided to try and salvage what was there.

The best thing about the boat is that it was never screwed up with foolish modifications and Home Depot inspired “upgrades” that are, unfortunately, all too common on these types of boats. Electronics and modifications were almost non-existent. She came equipped with a speed indicator (Standard Horizon), a stereo with speakers installed in the cabin and in the cockpit, and a VHF located at the Nav station.

Once we had her out of the water I discovered that the bottom was in excellent shape, no blisters, and no damage. Unfortunately, over the years the boat had been painted annually and, as a result, had accumulated about 18 coats of bottom paint which was beginning to peel off in spots when hit with the pressure washer.

Due to the condition of the paint and the peeling we decided to go ahead and strip the bottom. What a miserable job! Luckily we will only have to do it once. Basically the stripping consists of applying a really nasty chemical paint stripper and then scraping several pounds of the old bottom paint off with a putty knife. It took us three days then a day of wet sanding with an orbital sander using 80 grit wet & dry paper.

Once the stripping is done we masked the water line with fine line tape and began applying the Epoxy barrier coat. We chose to use Interlux 2000 which seems to be an industry standard for epoxy barrier coat. It took four coats (about 5 gallons) to get the proper thickness then we applied the first coat of bottom paint. For the first coat of bottom paint we used Interlux fiberglass bottom paint which is a very hard modified epoxy paint that is compatible with most bottom paints. I did the first coat in grey and the second coat in red. This way when I sand at the next haul out I will be able to see grey before I sand into the barrier coat.





Page Two of the project.

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