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Catalina Owners Rendezvous 2019 - Report

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Carl in LA
Captain

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USA
284 Posts

Initially Posted - 07/16/2019 : 08:01:54

Greetings Fellow Catalina Owners:

Our Commedore brought it to my attention that the 2019 Catalina Owners Rendezvous would be held in my back yard - so to speak - at Two Harbors, Catalina Island. The event was held at Catalina Island last year and I went and it was great. Yup - had to go this year as well...

The report is a little thin on pictures but hopefully the narrative will tell something of the story.

Registration: Registration was done on the Catalina Yachts website which was easy enough. The fee was $120 per person.

It should be noted that 2019 is the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Catalina Yachts which made it's way onto the promotional material.

Every cruise - large or small - starts with provisioning... not much involved as Catalina Yachts provides the Friday evening happy hour, Saturday lunch, Saturday dinner, and Sunday morning breakfast.

We crossed from LA to Catalina Island on Friday and finally got off the dock at about 10 AM... Ten AM was still gloomy but the sun would eventually come out. It's 24-miles from the dock to Two Harbors on Catalina... We wanted to scoot to beat any bigger waves from any afternoon winds that were likely to come up later in the day - we motored all the way. Sea state was benign... mabey a few three foot waves marching in on 8-seconds but nothing that bounced the 250 around worth noting...

Until that last mile... just like last year the "Isthmus Fan" was turned on... and a nice crisp 20-knt headwind slowed our last mile into the mooring field - nothing the Honda 9.9 couldn't handle - we just slowed to maybe three knots for a while.

All smiles once we were tied to the "string line"... the string line is a line of mooring lines engineered for lighter boats - 25-feet and under... and the fee for mooring on the string line is less - still $35 a night.

On shore the event is held at a beach facility called "Harbor Sands" - its a nice enough development with a bar, picnic tables, catering facilities, and lots of sand.

Now the problem of not enough pictures becomes a problem... I did not take any photos of the Friday night Happy Hour as we did not attend and I did not take any photos of the Saturday morning seminars.

I'll edit this post with photos of the agenda as well as some promotional material from Catalina Yachts which will help tell the story of the event.

To continue:

Catalina Yachts arranged for the group to tour the nearby University of Southern California Marine Biology Field Lab which is housed in several buildings on "Big Fisherman's Cove" which is on the south side of the Two Harbors area. Catalina Yachts made a donation to the school and the school graciously assigned a media relations specialist to be our guide as well as arranging for a grad student to provide a lecture... mummmm - wonder how much that donation was?

Anyway - most attendees dinghied over to the USC dock...

A good turn-out for the tour - maybe fifty attendees... Note the green swag t-shirts... pretty cool.

A general view of the facility...

Our lecture - on studies of Leopard Shark behavior...

The "petting zoo"...

And the fun things you see while in an anchorage...

OK... continued in another post in this thread...

Catalina 250 - Pretty Good Boat

Edited by - Carl in LA on 07/16/2019 08:24:47

Carl in LA
Captain

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USA
284 Posts

Response Posted - 07/16/2019 : 08:15:09

Continuing...

And a link to a brief video to capture the scene in the early evening when Catalina Yachts opened the bar.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mP7m4qckmne2x4K89

The lack of photos continues to break the stream of story telling but I'll try... Catalina Yachts knows how to throw a party... opening the bar loosened everybody up a bit and the excellent BBQ dinner was great. The DJ started blaring cool tunes and the ladies could not resist - they were up there "dancing in the sand"... but roars of laughter were heard when the dancing T-Rex came out to play WOW - Fun stuff!!!

Again - Catalina Yachts ain't no dummy... they pulled boat names out of the basket for great door prizes - that kept the place full for the length of the evening. Island Dreams, your's truly - won a cool Standard Horizon handheld VHF...

Sunday morning breakfast - no pictures !!! It was a great egg, sausage, and bacon breakfast - all you could eat...

The closing statements by Catalina Yachts staff were heartfelt and really endeared to me that even as Catalina Yachts is a business, a very successful business at that, has the human side. The business survives on selling new boats. We as owners of Catalinas know their build quality so that would not be a new boat buying issue - but now better understanding the human factor - it's a no brainer - need a new boat? Get a Catalina Yacht - after all - as mentioned in the Saturday morning technical discussion - they have ELEVEN models in production. Amazing... as was the 2019 owners rendezvous.

Best,

Carl

Catalina 250 - Pretty Good Boat

Edited by - Carl in LA on 07/16/2019 08:25:34

Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9013 Posts

Response Posted - 07/17/2019 : 07:43:30

Something "Catalina" was going or is going on at the Mystic Seaport just down the river from me--a string of them along the transient dock and bulkhead--maybe the Long Island Sound Catalina Association we once belonged to (with their smallest boat), doing a cruise or rendezvous. I motored by late in the day, so there was nobody on board to ask... There were several of what appeared to be their latest bigger models--slightly more angular transoms--looked pretty nice! From folks I know and observe, I suspect Catalina has the best brand loyalty for moving up of any boat manufacturer. Owners know best!

Dave Bristle
Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT
PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired),
Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 07/17/2019 07:46:16

Carl in LA
Captain

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USA
284 Posts

Response Posted - 07/18/2019 : 07:32:44

and a few pictures of the swag that was given to each boat attending the rendezvous...

The bag...

The Program

Attendees and sponsors...

The schedule...

The brochure...

The time-line of the brochure... and it was a personal pleasure to see the 250 featured in the brochure with a photo...

And the back page of the brochure...

And the back of the cool swag t-shirt that most attendees wore at some point during the event.

So there you go... Reading that chronology of Catalina Yachts is just sobering - an incredible successful business that has brought millions of smiles and much happiness across the world.

Good stuff...

Best,

Carl

Catalina 250 - Pretty Good Boat

Carl in LA
Captain

Members Avatar

USA
284 Posts

Response Posted - 07/18/2019 : 07:36:36

Perhaps a dealer rendezvous? Hope so...

quote:
Originally posted by Stinkpotter

Something "Catalina" was going or is going on at the Mystic Seaport just down the river from me--a string of them along the transient dock and bulkhead--maybe the Long Island Sound Catalina Association we once belonged to (with their smallest boat), doing a cruise or rendezvous. I motored by late in the day, so there was nobody on board to ask... There were several of what appeared to be their latest bigger models--slightly more angular transoms--looked pretty nice! From folks I know and observe, I suspect Catalina has the best brand loyalty for moving up of any boat manufacturer. Owners know best!

Catalina 250 - Pretty Good Boat

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