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Catalina Yachts: Before the port, cruises start here

By Piper Castillo, Times Staff Writer
In print: Sunday, August 24, 2008

Manager Michael Quinn walks pass the mold for a hull at the Catalina facilities in Largo. The company produces about 250 to 300 sailboats annually, with 21 sizes and series. The smallest is 12 feet, 5 inches, and the largest is 46 feet, 4 inches.
	[Atoyia Deans | Times]

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As I drove down Bryan Dairy Road toward Catalina Yachts/Morgan Division recently, I mulled over memories of salty Augusts gone by.

I remembered the summer of 1977 when our family, along with my father's best friend's family, sailed the Circe III, a Morgan 41, from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas. We crossed the Gulf Stream at night, under a full moon. We spent three weeks cruising the Abaco Islands.

Now I was on my way to see some modern-day yachts at the company's landlocked plant between Interstate 275 and Belcher Road.

Mike Quinn, the plant manager, greeted me at 3:30 p.m. sharp. Every Wednesday, the company holds public tours for potential boat buyers, sailing groups and community organizations.

Quinn, a 34-year employee, gave me and another visitor safety goggles before ushering us through three of seven industrial buildings on the property.

Catalina Yachts/Morgan Division is owned by Frank Butler, a Woodland Hills, Calif., boat builder. The Florida manufacturing facility is known as the Morgan Division, paying homage to Charley Morgan, who founded the original fiberglass boat business, Morgan Yacht Corp., in Pinellas County 44 years ago.

Although Morgan, a 78-year-old Treasure Island resident, is no longer part of the daily operations, it was a thrill for me to be in a place honoring the sailing icon's name. In 1970, Morgan raced a boat he built, the Heritage, in the America's Cup.

During the tour, we studied bulkheads, 6000-pound hull molds and learned how a lead keel is attached. We peeked at galleys lined with varnished wood and aft cabins with new bedding and private access to the head.

In the assembly building, Quinn invited me aboard a finished Catalina 400. It would be shipped within 10 days to Australia.

The boat would be loaded on a semitrailer truck and driven to the Port of Charleston in South Carolina. It would then be transported across the Atlantic and beyond to the Land Down Under.

I climbed the ladder and stood atop the 40-footer, picturing the new owner and his family waiting for the delivery in Sydney. Although yacht owners of today are a far cry from the rambunctious group heading to the Bahamas 31 years ago, I couldn't help but envision a 16-year-old kid with her dad. They're waiting to take a midnight sail, under a late-summer moon.