The Hope joined the Freedom fleet in 2020, picked up at a good price because of damage sustained in Hurricane Ike in 2008. The boat had sat tied up dockside since that time, and we found a great opportunity to pick her up and fix her up. The renovation taking about a year in my "spare time", she's had all her cushions redone, some bulkheads replaced, a little fiberglass work and some paint - so she looks like a winner again.

Launched in 1971, the Catalina 27 has been a popular favorite, enjoying the kind of commercial success that’s led to one of the longest and largest production runs of its era spanning 22 years and 6,600 boats. From the outset she was designed to be affordable for weekend excursions, club racing and coastal cruising – offshore work was always outside of the design scope. Yet despite this there has been at least one circumnavigation demonstrating that this vessel, with the right preparation and skills, can be an ocean passage maker. In 1979 a young 28 year old Patrick Childress set off in his shoal draft Catalina 27, Juggernaut, on a successful 3 year single-handed circumnavigation which included a 6400-mile, 53-day passage of the Indian Ocean.

The Catalina 27 was conceived in a 1970 design partnership between Robert Finch, and the founder of Catalina Yachts, Frank Butler. Butler built an incredible number of 27s at his boat factory in Southern California using modern boatbuilding processes that are not too different to methods employed today. Initial production started in 1971. She had a incredibly spacious interior and she was affordably priced at a time when cruising sailboats had captured the public imagination. These factors helped the boat find immediate success, in fact in the first three years 1,500 boats popped off the production line – that’s ten per week.

Early models were only available with outboard engines, an inboard option of an Atomic 4 engine was added in 1973, which later expanded to other engine varieties in successive years. The outboard engine option was later phased out in 1989. For shallow waters, a shoal draft winged-keel version was introduced in 1979. And popular among club racers, there was a version with a taller, more efficient, high aspect ratio rig which added 24 sq.ft. of canvas.

After an unprecedented 22 years of production resulting in 6,600 boats, production finally ceased in 1991.