When Brian Parkinson of Illinois applied to be
subscribed to the discussion group, many of us were surprised when he wrote that
he had hull #3, the third Catalina 22 ever manufactured, in 1969.
One of the guys in the group. David Bergevin ("BADAM") wrote:
"He may have a potential gold mine in his
hands. I bet [Catalina Yachts] would swap a Sport 22 for
it straight up."
Rich Fox ("SeDepecher"), commodore of the
C22NSA, noted:
"Hull #3 was built in 1969. Only a small
number of boats were actually built in 1969. This hull is
probably the first fin keel built."
Bob Thomas (1989 wing keel) added:
"I saw hull #1 about 2 or 3 years ago at
Catalina Yachts in Woodland Hills, CA. It was light blue and
white and looked brand new. It had the early style keel pivot
pin which was the first time I had seen that design."
That night Brian sent along a batch of photos
he'd taken of "Tiger," and wrote:
Thanks for letting me join up, I've followed the
discussion on Nos. 1, 2 and my 3. Here it is, took the pics
this morning.
The boat had been parked out back of a neighbor's barn for several
years, belonged to his son who lives in California. Somehow
the thing got trailered here to Illinois. The father, at
90-something years of age, decided he was tired of mowing around it;
another son knew I sailed and called me up and asked me to get rid
of it.
I thought it would make a fun playhouse for my daughter if I dug it
into my yard at a nice angle of heel, surrounded by blue petunias
with some ripples of white flowers to be the whitecaps. When I
saw it was in decent shape I thought maybe I would instead take it
down to Florida, mess around with a sailing buddy for a few weeks
next winter, then get blown off course to Cuba so I could maybe meet
Fidel before he kicked off and the island fell into the wicked
clutches of capitalism, have a story to tell my grandkids.
Then I would leave the boat for any wannabe Americans and just fly
home via Mexico City.
Next I started nosing around the several C22 sites here on the
Internet to discover the boat class has quite a following -- I've
probably crossed paths with C22's on Lake Michigan and never really
paid much attention other than noticing the pleasant lines of the
boat.
Brian Parkinson
1969
C-22 #3 - "Tiger"
Reynolds, Illinois
