Catalina Yachts Auction Includes Nine Boats, Sail and Power – Loose Cannon
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When all else fails, try journalism. Catalina Yachts Auction Includes Nine Boats, Sail and PowerButler Family Liquidating All Contents of Closed Florida Factory
The Catalina 22 has been in continuous production for decades with as many as 18,000 sold. Next month, possibly the final three ever made will sell to the highest bidder. Plus, a third that could be assembled from separate hull and deck parts that will be for sale during the same auction. The 22 was the first boat produced by Catalina Yachts when the company was founded in 1970 by Frank Butler, quickly followed by the Catalina 27. Catalina of Largo, Florida, was shut down in October when the man who had purchased the company from the Butler estate could no longer make payroll. Beginning at 10 a.m. on June 9, the bones of Catalina Yachts will be offered piecemeal to the highest bidders. That includes nine boats in various stages of completion, one of them nearly finished. Three more that could be assembled by joining hull and deck parts and another three are hull-only. The auction will include molds and other tooling for the entire Catalina line. Even so, don’t expect the auction to be a huge money-maker for the seller, according to someone who intends to be there, Florida boatbuilder Ken Fickett, inveterate auction-goer and collector of boat molds. Ficket, president of Mirage Manufacturing in Gainesville, predicted that the entire auction might net $250,000, but could go higher depending on the stock of materials such as fiberglass, resin and electrical cables—the commodities of boatbuilding. Besides the 22s—lately fetching around $40,000 new—there is a 316, two 356s and a 426 with bonded hulls and decks. A 386 and 426 could be assembled from existing hull and deck parts. There are three additional sailboats hull-only. Of the substantially assembled boats, two are True North powercraft, 34- and 39-foot models. There is also a True North 39 hull-only. Bay Area Auction Services is conducting the four-day auction, which also includes all of Catalina’s tools, equipment and materials left in stock. The auction benefits the owner of the factory property, which was retained by Butler family entities, even as the business itself was sold in May 2025 to a North Carolina boatbuilder. At the moment the auction house website is displaying 336 photos of Catalina items, but owner Greg Farner said that as the auction date nears he expects that total to grow to a “couple thousand.” “We’ll be out there next week to get the actual live Internet bidding catalog up,” Farner said. “So we’ll have multiple pictures of each of these models. It should be up by the end of next week.” Farner pointed out that the sailboats all lack masts, rigging and sails, and none of the vessels have engines. “And that’s another, 100 to 150 grand depending on the size of the boat,” he said. Farner also said that all the upfront legal work has been done to ensure that auction buyers are undisputed owners of property they buy—the process has taken into account any previous customer payments made for the boats in question. Gallery
A selection of what may eventually total nearly 2,000 photographs. A 22 Revival?Eulogies for the Catalina 22 might be premature, Boatbuilder Fickett said, noting that some enterprising builder might snap up everything it takes to resume production. “You could get all the rights to the 22, all the molds to set yourself up in the Catalina 22 business, and if you spent $50,000, you might be overspending,” he said. In general, the partially built fleet is worth just “pennies on the dollar,” Fickett said. Which could be a trap for the amateur builder who sees the auction as an opportunity. “Here’s the problem: If the boats don’t have 100 percent of their fiberglass pieces, now you’ve got to construct those pieces on a one-time basis, and that’s a huge pain in the ass,” he said. “It wouldn’t be much for me to figure that out, but Joe Blow might struggle with it.” One strategy might be to buy one of the unfinished boats and the corresponding molds, Fickett said, suggesting that a quarter-million-dollars worth of tooling could be had for, say, $30,000. Sad GoodbyeFor some of the longtime Catalina workers, the auction will seem like a funeral, dashing any hopes of a corporate comeback. “It’s a shame that they are letting the company go. We loved working there, even though our pay wasn’t that good,” Lisa Cayce said. “We were all family.”
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