Catalina Means More Than Just a Sailboat Brand
The news that Catalina Yachts, America’s largest sailboat builder which has been operating since 1969, will “temporarily pause” boat production was announced on October 15, 2025. The news got me thinking about the brand and the formative experiences from my first sailboat, a Catalina 27. With regards to the current production pause, a Facebook post from the president of the Largo, Florida-based boatyard Patrick Turner explains,
“To the Catalina Community,
I want to share an important update directly with those who matter most to this company — our owners, future owners, and the broader sailing community that has supported Catalina for more than 50 years.
We have initiated a temporary production pause while we reorganize key areas of our operation. Like many manufacturers in today’s environment, we are navigating short-term financial challenges. Rather than pushing ahead in a way that could compromise quality or consistency, we have chosen to take a responsible pause while we finalize the support needed to move forward stronger.
This decision reflects our commitment to Catalina’s long-term health — not just the next boat out of the factory, but the thousands that already exist and the many more still to come.
What This Means for Catalina Owners & Buyers
All existing boat orders remain in place and will be fulfilled.
Our dealer network remains available to assist with sales, service, and warranty matters.
This is not a setback in spirit — it is a reset in structure. Catalina has weathered many challenges over the decades, and each one has made us more resilient. This moment will be no different.
I am deeply grateful for the loyalty and passion of this community. Catalina has never been just a boatbuilder — it is a family of sailors, dreamers, and doers who believe in adventure and independence. That spirit is alive and well.
I will continue to share updates as we move through this transition and return to production with renewed strength.
Thank you for being part of the Catalina story. The best chapters are still ahead.
With respect and appreciation,
Patrick Turner
President, Catalina Yachts.”
The surprise announcement comes after the company was acquired by Michael Reardon, founder and executive of Daedalus Yachts, in May 2025. Reardon also acquired Catalina Yachts’ sister company True North in the deal. Notably, Reardon acquired the American production sailboat company Tartan this year as well.
Additional reporting from friend of Best4Boats Peter Swanson on his Substack Loose Cannon paints a more skeptical picture. According to a post he cites on the Catalina Parts & Pieces Facebook page by a Catalina Yachts employee named Lisa Cayce, the new owner had not paid employees wages for two months leading to the announcement and their insurance was cancelled.
The true state of Catalina Yachts will be revealed in the coming weeks and months. But as the Catalina Yachts developments continue and speculations swirls, my mind goes to a more sentimental place.
My first boat was a Catalina 27 and she was wonderful.
What Catalina Means to Me – My First Sailboat
I bought Capias, a Catalina 27 of 1973 vintage, for $1,800 from an older gentleman who called Pass-a-Grille, Florida home in 2011. One of my Eckerd College marine science professors introduced us; I presume they were happy hour acquaintances at the Undertow bar or some similar beachy haunt. The Catalina owner was vague about where he got her, but I’m reasonably sure she was abandoned during the onset of the Great Recession like one of those unwanted dogs chucked out of a car on the outskirts of town. His daughter didn’t want it, so there it sat eating up his modest dock space. Enter me, the kind of bright eyed, big dreaming, young buck type who’d actually buy a beat-up old thing like Capias. I didn’t even consider myself a sailor, having dabbled in activities like summer day sailing camp but not much else. Dostoyevsky famously features the Russian literary archetype the “holy fool” in his work. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I fit the role.
Her deck paint was gone to the gel coat in most places. The running rigging was not just frayed but in tatters. A vacant outboard bracket hung from its last metal strut with sad little squeaks. My professor pulled me aside and said something to the effect of:
“This boat is in terrible shape, but I thought it was worth you checking it out because it’s a Catalina,” he, a lifelong boat owner, explained. He showed me how solid the deck was. I jumped around like a kangaroo to be sure. No give. The hull seemed sound as well and the mast, and its base, looked great. The Catalina 27 has a fin keel and was known as a Jack of all trades kind of sailboat. She’s happy in a regatta even if she rarely wins, comfortable in a sea with cruising comforts adequate for moderate passagemaking or further if you are not too fussy. The saying “she ain’t much but she’s got good bones” was apt for Capias.
The interior was nice too with standing headroom throughout the salon. A folding table around family-style bench seating was to starboard, modest galley (stripped of anything useful of course) was to port. The v-berth was plenty large to my 21-year-old sensibilities. I was amazed an enclosed head was down there, even though my attempts to get ‘er going again almost sank her. Spoiler, that seacock was toast and thank the lord a trusty baggie full of bungs was handy. But this is a gross story best left for another time.
I bought Capias with the meager savings I scraped together from my working summers as a marine science lab rat. I spent the night aboard and the need to bug bomb the whole interior became a critical priority. Dozens of roaches lay in every conceivable place afterward. I sanded, primed, and painted the deck. For a first timer, the result wasn’t so bad and immediately elevated her from derelict to pretty enough. I got a cheapo outboard off Craigslist, a new bracket, and away I was—only for the bracket to fail and for me to almost lose the whole engine during my first transit. Somehow I saved the thing, rigged it back into place with every line aboard like some kind of methed out spider web, and continued on.
What is a capias? Apparently, capias is a legal term. The definition is “a writ ordering the arrest of a named person.” I found an ancient manila folder aboard with faded pictures of who must’ve been previous owners. Perhaps they were lawyers and this boat some kind of prize? Or maybe the name was a play on words, the boat itself a legally binding order that entrapped the owners. I kept the name, an inside joke that I wasn’t privy to.
More experienced sailor friends helped me dial in the basics of sailing and soon I was spending every free afternoon I could zipping around Tampa Bay. I ran aground countless times, the warm waters forgiving with soft sandy bottoms. Locals to St. Petersburg know of a deep water cut south of Indian Key not far from campus and I probably tacked and jibed up and down that cut 1,000 times. Of course it was fun to pile in friends and learn from more experienced sailor buddies, but the pure joy I had just screwing around out there by myself and learning things the hard way was transcendental in nature. While sailing the ole bird Capias, the blues about getting dumped by some chick I liked or angst around my thesis just melted away. There was only seeing how close I could pinch to the wind or how straight I could get the tell tales to fly.
I remember one afternoon in particular. I was doing my thing solo in the Indian Key cut, playing with sail trim with my mostly self-taught knowledge. Sure enough, as if by magic, the tiller hummed in my hand. I, surprised and unaware of this phenomenon, let go. My old Catalina 27, trimmed properly for the first time in years, was tracking perfectly straight on her course under sail. The tiller quivering might as well have been humming a sacred “ommm” of a Buddhist monk, the vibration and alignment of it all so perfect.
Capias and I spent that whole afternoon like that, the warm Florida breeze sweet smelling and consistent at around 15 knots. I did a fair amount of hooting and hollering, walking about freely aboard while Capias sailed herself. The sun set on the Gulf in that uniquely Gulf way, all otherworldly orange and towering deep purple clouds. Bottlenose dolphins joined me for a time and seabirds flocked to and from the mangroves of Indian Key to the north. Love of life itself is born through experiences like these.
Ole Capias and I would get into all kinds of local mischief in the years ahead. I’d even be selected to compete on Norway’s (then) #1 reality TV show Alt for Norge (Season 5), my schtick as a guy living on a sailboat in Florida probably the main casting selling point. A Norwegian film crew came out to spend time with me aboard for my introduction segment, still available at the time of this writing. Although I didn’t physically sail Capias across the Atlantic, in a very real but roundabout way the Catalina 27 did help transport me to Norway.
Craving a Catalina Comeback
The “temporary pause” in Catalina Yachts production hurts. Once the largest production sailboat company in the world, Catalina took the world by storm with their Catalina 22 and then Catalina 27. These beauties would essentially be the Honda Civic of the sailing world for decades, thriving at the intersection of quality and affordability for the American middle class. The times I’ve come up in are starkly different. Sailing increasingly is not affordable for the American middle class or young “holy fools” as I was when I got into this whole world.
Personally, I will remain optimistic that American production sailboat building will somehow find its way again. I don’t know what’s to come for the industry nor its cultural human element. Without young people experiencing their own ommm-perfect moments of pure, uncensored love at the tiller of their Capias-like vessels, the era of sailing as an every person’s activity is dubious. Where I live, slip fees have approximately doubled over the last decade. If American civilization can’t figure out how to make Catalina 22s and 27s (or sailboats like them) or provide slips that fired up twenty and thirty somethings can actually afford, then the chain of sailing as a common cultural experience will be over. The perfect day when I made Capias’ tiller shiver will not be something a young person can relate to, but an alien experience they will never feel—and we are all poorer for it.
