Confused about CD22 vs.Typhoon Senior

[Mike McInerney]

Hi Folks. Great website.
I live in Wyoming and sail on Bear Lake which staddles the UT-ID border. Bear Lake has a short summer sailing season with fierce afternoon winds locally referrred to as rodeo sailing. I currently sail a fin-keel tall-rig Catalina 25. Over the years I've thought a CD22 would be a near pefect boat in that it was sturdy, safe, could be launched with a regular vehicle, looked neat and so on. I've sort of looked for one, but not that hard.
But now I'm confused about the difference between the CD22 and the Typhoon Senior. Can anybody help me out, and which would be better suited to my locale?
Thanks for any input.



mmci@allwest.net

[Dana Arenius]

Hi Mike,

Hope I can explain... The CD22 was pretty well fitted out. It had all the bells and whistles. Lots of teak and ash wood in the interior.....but starting to be very expensive compared to most other boats in that size range. But Cape Dory believed (and I think rightfully) that they should not all of a sudden offer less on the CD22 to make it more competatively priced. It would be unfair to former CD22 owners on those models which had a lot of standard extras. That would drive the resale value of the CD22 down.

Many boat builders adopted another approach. If the price was becoming too expensive, introduce another model. Hence came the Typhoon Senior. If you take a look at the size, weight, etc., you will find very little differences between the boats as far as the numbers are concerned. But some of those more expensive details were eliminated or offered for an additional cost. So if you wanted curtains, lifelines, stern rail, all opening ports, etc., you could get them on the Typhoon Senior but it was extra. You could go all the way up to what would have been a fully rigged CD22. The CD22 was eliminated and replaced by the Typhoon Senior. You should view it as something many builders had to do in order to keep competative in building boats which were less than 30 feet in length.

Both boats are very fine boats.....it just depends on what "extras" you are looking for and if that Typhoon Senior was equipped with it. I will point out that the base price of each was vastly different because of the list of standard equipment was so different. If you are shopping between the two, you should become familiar with the standard equipment of each, what options are on the Typhoon Senior you are looking at, and then compare the price difference.


Dana



arenius@jlab.org