Any one ever heard of one of these. It claims to be a Catalina
http://www.boats.com/reviews/perry-desi ... capri-235/
http://www.boats.com/reviews/perry-desi ... capri-235/
Capri 23.5
- Thread starter drewlamparello
- Start date
Was meant to compete with the Melges 24. Sadly performance wasn't enough to separate itself from the Melges.
if you have ever sailed a melges, you understand how unique a boat it is... It requires an extreme level of attention to detail, and a full crew that are on their game. With that its a joy just to watch move. This is NOT to say the M24 cannot be single handed of course it can, but its a lot of boat to hold down, and sails much better with crew.
The M24 filled a gap for a lot of sport boat types that wanted to do OD racing, and honestly it did a great job of it. One Design is funny though, in that it requires a lot of people to own the same boat to build fleets. Because of this, in my opinion, the Capri 23.5 wasn't enough of a difference to garner a following, therefore sales didn't happen therefore the purpose for the boat didn't happen (see large OD fleet). To add to that Capri had an [unfavorable] quality reputation. I think one that is really unwarranted. Much of this was due to early construction of the Capri 25, which suffered from deformed hulls at the compression post, and questionable layup in the first few boats in production. For whatever reason the Capri name became "Crapee" and it stuck.
Actually nothing has separated itself enough to really do better than the M24. The new J70 has attempted it, and for OD boat sales, has done a reasonable job of gathering the people who would have otherwise purchased J22s... but the J/70 isn't as spritely as the M24, so its not really taking away from the M24 fleet, its just creating its own following.
There are several "Capri" models besides the 22, some that were "interesting."
They were:
Capri 25 (many of you already know I owned one), was meant to compete against the J/24, as a OD racer, but also competed against MORC racers like the Lindenberg 26, the S2 7.9, and the Olsen 25. The Capri 25 was a neat design, and way more comfortable to sail, and overnight on, than the J24. Also it sailed well to its rating, which generally was a slight bit slower than a J24 overall. The Capri 25, was a masthead rig (requiring lots of headsail changes), and a light air killer. I'd put the Capri 25 up against nearly anything in light air (under 5 knots) and under 30 feet, if there is flat water.
Capri 30, this was a double spreader grown-up version of the Capri 25. This masthead rig boat also required headsail changes to power up, and was designed for MORC racing as well, to compete against the OLSON 30, the S2 9.1, and others. It can be argued how successful a design it was. As a OD racer when only 50 or so were made it was a flop, but people are rediscovering it, powering up the rig with reinforced spreaders, and changing the keel design out for a deeper narrower keel with a bulb, and these boats can fly! yes these were nearly ULDB boats, and YES they CAN and DO plane. However its a scary damned ride when they do!
The Capri 25, and 30 suffered from being wide beam designs that carried their shape well forward... this left very little wetted surface below the water line, and provided air craft carrier decks and wide combings... this made crew work quite easy, but it also afforded very little initial form stability, but as the winds piped up, stiffened the boat up considerably (large overhangs), and slowed them down with larger heel angles like a brick. I used to say that 6 knots of wind gave me 15 degrees of heel, and 40knots gave me 30 (of course at 28, you were washing the windows, and rounding up). If you wanted to win races you had to stay between 10 and 15 degrees of heel.
The Capri 25, and 30 had nice long (forward to back) fin keels (lots of lift), and deep spade rudders... this gives the feeling of 2 finger steering, that is until you lose bite, and the boat rounds up. Because of the shape of these boats, they were often referred to as broach machines, because of the masthead rigs, and massive kites, the boats easily would oscillate and of course once you were past say 25 degrees of heel on an oscillation, with the spinnaker plowing the bow of the boat in (and the rudder out), you lost steering and BROACH! The kite on my Capri 25 was easily 25-30% bigger than my S2 7.9...
The Capri 26 was an oddity, and for the life of me I have NO idea what the thinking of it was... other than to garner a cruiser reputation out of the brand. I like the Capri 26 for how it looks (pretty boat in my opinion), but its speed is lost in a heavy design and being under canvased (it was a huge design variance though from the venerable Catalina 27, so in that respect it was ground breaking). Some of the best parts of the design though were used on the Catalina 270, so it wasn't a complete flop, much of what they learned they used in their other boats.
That leaves us with the Capri 37, which was a singularly built boat, it had one purpose, to be used as a competition boat for the Congressional cup. These boats are/were built for speed, and a monsterous crew to sail them. There is no real comfort to them, just speed, and lots of it. Neat design though, and would be a great boat to revive and race in some longer races, like the Chi-Mac, or block island. I do believe they are still maintained and raced as a OD fleet though.
Other Capri boats were the Capri 14.2, 16.5, which were OD dinghys... the 14.2 is still made, and is very popular, especially in rental fleets in the keel version. The 165 was just a bigger 142.
The Capri 18 was a pocket cruiser, and really was a 20. I always liked the boat a lot, and considered buying one on more than one occasion. The part that kept me from buying one (new) was that financing was RIGHT on the edge, where I could purchase a NEW Capri 22 with a lower payment than a NEW Capri 18... because the Capri 22 put me over the $25k barrier, allowing longer payment schedules. Also the Capri 18 is a very SLOW design in comparison to say a Precision 21 or even Precision 18. That being said the Capri 18 is big down below, and simple design to sail with a barney post, and vang and little else. By contrast the sail controls on the Capri 22, make it a great step up from the 18, and there are way more Capri 22s to be found than 18s. For the used money, or even new, the Capri 22 was always a better buy.
Anyway, that's the lineup as I saw it. With my comments on the Capri 23.5 already noted.
if you have ever sailed a melges, you understand how unique a boat it is... It requires an extreme level of attention to detail, and a full crew that are on their game. With that its a joy just to watch move. This is NOT to say the M24 cannot be single handed of course it can, but its a lot of boat to hold down, and sails much better with crew.
The M24 filled a gap for a lot of sport boat types that wanted to do OD racing, and honestly it did a great job of it. One Design is funny though, in that it requires a lot of people to own the same boat to build fleets. Because of this, in my opinion, the Capri 23.5 wasn't enough of a difference to garner a following, therefore sales didn't happen therefore the purpose for the boat didn't happen (see large OD fleet). To add to that Capri had an [unfavorable] quality reputation. I think one that is really unwarranted. Much of this was due to early construction of the Capri 25, which suffered from deformed hulls at the compression post, and questionable layup in the first few boats in production. For whatever reason the Capri name became "Crapee" and it stuck.
Actually nothing has separated itself enough to really do better than the M24. The new J70 has attempted it, and for OD boat sales, has done a reasonable job of gathering the people who would have otherwise purchased J22s... but the J/70 isn't as spritely as the M24, so its not really taking away from the M24 fleet, its just creating its own following.
There are several "Capri" models besides the 22, some that were "interesting."
They were:
Capri 25 (many of you already know I owned one), was meant to compete against the J/24, as a OD racer, but also competed against MORC racers like the Lindenberg 26, the S2 7.9, and the Olsen 25. The Capri 25 was a neat design, and way more comfortable to sail, and overnight on, than the J24. Also it sailed well to its rating, which generally was a slight bit slower than a J24 overall. The Capri 25, was a masthead rig (requiring lots of headsail changes), and a light air killer. I'd put the Capri 25 up against nearly anything in light air (under 5 knots) and under 30 feet, if there is flat water.
Capri 30, this was a double spreader grown-up version of the Capri 25. This masthead rig boat also required headsail changes to power up, and was designed for MORC racing as well, to compete against the OLSON 30, the S2 9.1, and others. It can be argued how successful a design it was. As a OD racer when only 50 or so were made it was a flop, but people are rediscovering it, powering up the rig with reinforced spreaders, and changing the keel design out for a deeper narrower keel with a bulb, and these boats can fly! yes these were nearly ULDB boats, and YES they CAN and DO plane. However its a scary damned ride when they do!
The Capri 25, and 30 suffered from being wide beam designs that carried their shape well forward... this left very little wetted surface below the water line, and provided air craft carrier decks and wide combings... this made crew work quite easy, but it also afforded very little initial form stability, but as the winds piped up, stiffened the boat up considerably (large overhangs), and slowed them down with larger heel angles like a brick. I used to say that 6 knots of wind gave me 15 degrees of heel, and 40knots gave me 30 (of course at 28, you were washing the windows, and rounding up). If you wanted to win races you had to stay between 10 and 15 degrees of heel.
The Capri 25, and 30 had nice long (forward to back) fin keels (lots of lift), and deep spade rudders... this gives the feeling of 2 finger steering, that is until you lose bite, and the boat rounds up. Because of the shape of these boats, they were often referred to as broach machines, because of the masthead rigs, and massive kites, the boats easily would oscillate and of course once you were past say 25 degrees of heel on an oscillation, with the spinnaker plowing the bow of the boat in (and the rudder out), you lost steering and BROACH! The kite on my Capri 25 was easily 25-30% bigger than my S2 7.9...
The Capri 26 was an oddity, and for the life of me I have NO idea what the thinking of it was... other than to garner a cruiser reputation out of the brand. I like the Capri 26 for how it looks (pretty boat in my opinion), but its speed is lost in a heavy design and being under canvased (it was a huge design variance though from the venerable Catalina 27, so in that respect it was ground breaking). Some of the best parts of the design though were used on the Catalina 270, so it wasn't a complete flop, much of what they learned they used in their other boats.
That leaves us with the Capri 37, which was a singularly built boat, it had one purpose, to be used as a competition boat for the Congressional cup. These boats are/were built for speed, and a monsterous crew to sail them. There is no real comfort to them, just speed, and lots of it. Neat design though, and would be a great boat to revive and race in some longer races, like the Chi-Mac, or block island. I do believe they are still maintained and raced as a OD fleet though.
Other Capri boats were the Capri 14.2, 16.5, which were OD dinghys... the 14.2 is still made, and is very popular, especially in rental fleets in the keel version. The 165 was just a bigger 142.
The Capri 18 was a pocket cruiser, and really was a 20. I always liked the boat a lot, and considered buying one on more than one occasion. The part that kept me from buying one (new) was that financing was RIGHT on the edge, where I could purchase a NEW Capri 22 with a lower payment than a NEW Capri 18... because the Capri 22 put me over the $25k barrier, allowing longer payment schedules. Also the Capri 18 is a very SLOW design in comparison to say a Precision 21 or even Precision 18. That being said the Capri 18 is big down below, and simple design to sail with a barney post, and vang and little else. By contrast the sail controls on the Capri 22, make it a great step up from the 18, and there are way more Capri 22s to be found than 18s. For the used money, or even new, the Capri 22 was always a better buy.
Anyway, that's the lineup as I saw it. With my comments on the Capri 23.5 already noted.
And my second sailboat (after a Sunfish ) was the Capri Omega 14. Bright orange hull! Ugly and a very slow Portsmouth rating, but I won many races with it my first year in northern California.