Brighten up Your Cabin with LED Strip Lighting

It seems that every C-22 owner upgrades their cabin lighting at some point. The original dome lights are not very bright or sturdy and their incandescent bulbs use a lot of battery power. In Summer Dance, the previous owner had replaced the two salon dome lights with the combination white/red LED lights from a certain Catalina parts dealership. They don’t use much power but they also don’t put out much light either.

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Ergonomic Hatch Dog Knobs

One of the first things that you learn when you step into a C-22 cabin is to watch your head. With the pop top down, there’s only a little over 4′ of headroom and you will hit your head on something every time you turn around. Every C-22 owner probably has scars on their scalp from the ends of hatch dog bolts. They protrude nearly straight down at you from right over the galley and settee, where you spend the most time!

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A Quick and Easy Sliding Hatch Fix

Like many older C-22s the sliding hatch of Summer Dance made screeching sounds when it was slid open and closed. The noise comes from the front edges of the hatch scraping on the side rails and on the cabin top. The front edges scrape because the side flanges wear thin from years of use, lose their clearance, and allow the hatch to ride lower in the side rails. The thinner they get, the more scraping and screeching. Too thin and they start cracking from the stress of weight on the hatch when standing on the hatch to handle the sails.

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Make Your Galley Easier to Slide

The first mate is particular about her spaces onboard Summer Dance, one being the sleeping area, the other being the galley. I’ve not seen the underside of the galleys in other boats, but ours is bare plywood except for the key strip that slides in the slot in the top of the starboard settee. It’s a simple, crude setup that works, I suppose, even though it has a lot of friction. Also, the fiberglass underneath is pretty scratched from protruding screws and staples; staples because the staples in the original teak key strip had rusted years ago and the strip had fallen off but not been replaced.

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How to Restore a Kenyon Alcohol Stove

The early Catalina 22 yachts offered a sliding galley option. After moving one of the starboard salon cushions, the galley can be slid forward from its storage space under the starboard cockpit seat. The galley is equipped with a Kenyon Homestrand two burner cooking stove. The stove uses pressurized alcohol for fuel and works on the same principle as the more popular Coleman white gas stoves and lanterns.

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