Meet Goblin, Our 1985 Catalina 30 Refit (What We're Fixing This Year)

Welcome to Goblin, our 1985 Catalina 30 tall rig that we bought in 2023 as our first sailboat. Since then, we've been racing him hard and fixing him up through sweat equity and DIY upgrades.

The Catalina 30 is one of the most successful production sailboats ever made - over 6,500 built between 1975 and the late 2000s. They're proven cruiser-racers that can handle everything from weekend club racing to coastal cruising, which is exactly why we chose one.

In this video, I'm solo sailing Goblin through Cleveland Harbor on November 1st, 2025, showing you the boat and walking through our winter project list. Last winter we re-cored the foredeck with Corecell, upgraded to a complete digital switching system, and installed a new Garhauer traveler. This winter? We're tackling cockpit coaming reinforcement, bulkhead strengthening, recoring the cockpit floor, replacing the pedestal and steering assembly, upgrading the bowsprit, removing the toe rail and recoring the port foredeck, refinishing brightwork, and resealing all the leaking windows and hatches.

This channel documents the real process of maintaining and upgrading a cheap sailboat - not just the highlight reel. We'll show the successes, the failures, the itchy fiberglass work, and everything we learn along the way. Because the whole point of having a boat is to use it, and that's exactly what we're doing.

If you're working on your own boat, racing, cruising, or just dreaming about it - subscribe and follow along. Let's see what we can do with these plastic classics.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Opening
0:35 - Meet Goblin - 1985 Catalina 30
1:15 - Winter Project List
3:29 - Why a Catalina 30
6:06 - Cockpit Tour and Sailing
10:50 - Catalina 30 History & Design
11:50 - Taking Down Sails and Docking
14:11 - Below Deck Tour
15:53 - Channel Mission & Subscribe

Follow along on Instagram: ‪@SailGoblin‬

#sailgoblin #sailboat #catalina30 #boatrestoration #sailing #diy #boatrefit #lakeeriesailing #classicboat #sailboatlife #racingsailboat

🎵 Copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. https://lickd.co
Baba O'Riley (Instrumental Version / Remastered 2017) by Pete Townshend, https://t.lickd.co/l/9oPreKl1X8e