The 1997 National regatta was held in Long Beach, California. Seal Beach Yacht Club hosted the event which sailed out of Alamitos Bay. The first race started with light fluky winds, but the winds filled in nicely for the other four races.

There were ten Catalina 25's, nine standard rigs and one tall rig. Only one Catalina 250 showed up for the second National Regatta for that class. Racing under the new class rule, the standard and tall rigs were split in to two separate classes. Originally we had planned on starting the classes at five minute intervals, but with only one entrant in the tall rig class, and one C250 everyone agreed to start all classes together, but score them separately.

Since the tall rig and C250 had no challengers, they each scored a first place for the event.