Laid Up

That pretty much describes the both of us for the month of March: laid up. We brought home colds from the conference we went to in Spokane (or the party we attended on our way home, who can say?) and have been taking turns laying on the couch moaning about them. Then, we started our month-long dog-sitting stint with Daffy, a tubby and ancient dachshund belonging to some friends of the family. I was not previously aware that dachshunds were nocturnal creatures, but she seems to come alive only at night, snuffling and snorting about the bedroom, or whimpering softly in the dark. From time to time, she appears to have a seizure during which it sounds like she is trying to cough up a hair ball, leaving us both wide awake and wondering what horrors we might see if we turned on the light. We usually leave it off now. Her owners said she's been doing that for a while and hasn't keeled over yet.

So anyway, it's been hard to sleep around here and I finally gave up this morning when Mandy accidentally head-butted me a little before five. My brain is too fuzzy to work so I have mostly been looking at boats. It turns out there is another 38 footer up in Anacortes that I might want to take a look at, an '84 Catalina 38. I should have checked the listing sites more closely before we went up there to look at the Hunter. Fortunately, Anacortes is pretty close to Port Townsend; short hop on the ferry over to Whidbey Island and then a nice drive up across Deception Pass. Daffy doesn't always react well to being left unattended, however; she will pretty much just cut loose and perform her elimination functions anywhere she happens to be. We have a time-tested method for dealing with this while we are here: any time she shows signs of life and drags herself up off of the bed where she spends most of her hours, we take her outside and keep her there until her duty is done. If we're not here, though, we can't count on her to hold it for more than a couple hours. She will also whine loudly and incessantly until we return, which obviously doesn't effect us during our absence, but makes me feel bad when we get back. She is a poster child for the Wikipedia article on dachshunds:

If left alone, many dachshunds will whine until they have companionship. Like many dogs if left alone too frequently, some dachshunds are prone to separation anxiety and may chew objects in the house to relieve stress.

Last year, she ate the molding in the dining room when we left to go to town for the day to run errands. This year, we at least hope to prevent physical destruction by means of a pug-cage lent me by some other friends. If it can hold two rampaging young pugs, it ought to be able to confine an elderly wiener dog for a few hours.

So if we ever get to feeling better again, we may go up and take a look at that Catalina. I don't have terribly high hopes for it from the design perspective, but it is even less expensive than the Hunter was. It also occupies a similarly exceptional role in the pantheon of production boats: as the Hunter cutter was designed by John Cherubini, the Catalina 38 design is a product of the renowned Sparkman & Stephens naval architecture firm, designers of a long line of historic and undefeated America's Cup defenders (and, legend has it, during WWII the hull of the now-famous DUKW amphibious trucks that can still be found criss-crossing the streets and waterways of Seattle loaded with tourists). Due to the volume of the model that was produced and the association with the less auspicious Catalina name, you can pick up a high-performing boat at a fraction of the price it would sell for if it had the original designer's name attached.

That said, the Catalina 38 has some of the exact same features I disliked in the Hunter 37 cutter, namely the keel-stepped mast and the head forward. The keel is also nearly two feet deeper, which can be a drawback. But it looks like it might have more hanging locker space, which would make Mandy happy, and it's a foot longer and $15,000 cheaper. It's relatively narrower for the length due to its racing lineage, but also has less tankage, so storage space in general might be better. I'm fine with that. Tankage is a perennial concern for cruisers, but I would rather start out with less built in and either add additional tanks to preference or carry additional stores in cans. Single large tanks are more efficient, but less trustworthy and less flexible. We would rather take advantage of the extra space while doing short hops around here for now, while later having the option of taking on more cans of fuel and water to stretch our range if necessary.

The Catalina also has most of the advantages of the Hunter, in that it is a well-known boat with large and dedicated owners groups, for which much information and advice already exists dealing with common issues and upgrades. I've heard that some runs have been prone to osmotic blistering (that could explain the price) but you never know until you take a look.

But since we are laid up, that will have to wait.