What she is
The Catalina 270 was built between 1992 and 1996 and was, for its day, a fairly modern idea of what a small cruising boat should be: beamy, light, fin-keeled, with a spade rudder and — the thing that sold it to thousands of people — a proper interior you can stand up in. Catalina built more boats than anyone else in America for a reason, and it was rarely because they were the fastest.
Swallow is hull 38 of the 1993 run, launched in April of that year. She has spent her entire life in fresh water, first on Joe Pool Lake and now on Lewisville, which is the single kindest thing that can happen to a boat. There is no salt in her, anywhere.
- Length overall
- 27 ft
- Beam
- 9 ft 10 in
- Draft
- 5 ft (deep fin keel)
- Displacement
- approx. 7,500 lb
- Rig
- Masthead sloop
- Steering
- Wheel, pedestal
- Engine
- Perkins Perama M-20 diesel
- Rated
- 18 hp at 3,600 rpm
- Hours
- 542
- Built
- April 1993, Catalina Yachts
- Hull ID
- CTYB0038D393
- Home port
- DCYC, Oak Point, TX
Five hundred and forty-two hours
That number deserves its own heading, because it is the most surprising thing about her. A thirty-three-year-old auxiliary diesel might reasonably be expected to have two or three thousand hours on it. Swallow has 542. Somebody bought this boat, sailed it, and almost never motored anywhere.
The engine is a Perkins Perama M-20, a three-cylinder marine diesel of about 18 horsepower — small, simple, and entirely adequate for pushing seven and a half thousand pounds across a lake. It was serviced in 2025 with a new belt, water pump, impeller and hoses, and the paperwork came with the boat.
Below
The interior is where the 270 earned its keep. Wide beam carried well forward gives a saloon that feels a size larger than the boat is, with settees either side, a galley to port, an enclosed head, a V-berth forward and a quarter berth aft. Headroom is about five foot eleven, which makes me duck slightly and makes Martha — who is five foot nothing — entirely indifferent.
How she came to us
We looked for the better part of a year. The shortlist ran through Catalina 28s and 30s, a Hunter 280 and a Beneteau, up and down two lakes, and the criteria barely moved the whole time: wheel steering, standing headroom, an inboard diesel, and a cabin Martha would actually want to spend an afternoon in.
Swallow was surveyed over two days in June 2026 by a SAMS surveyor. Twenty-six pages. He found what you would expect on a boat this age — a soft patch of deck core around a leaking stanchion base, a burnt shore-power inlet, an anode almost entirely gone, some tired bottom paint — and, importantly, none of the things that end a sale. No "Catalina smile" at the keel joint. Hull, stringers and bulkheads all sound. Engine strong, oil clean, no alarms.
He valued her at $17,500. We paid $15,000.
