Review of Cape Dory Typhoon Senior
Basic specs.
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Both the hull and the deck is made of hand laid fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of hand laid fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.
The deck is a sandwich construction which improves the indoor climate. Especially when the water is colder than the air in the cabin, then the double hull insulates against cold water and reduce the condense water in the cabin. The core material in the sandwich construction is balsa.
The interior is like most other boats made of teak. Teak has the advantage of being naturally very oily and therefore water-repellent, which is suitable on boats.
The boat is equipped with a galley.
The Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is built with a fractional rig. A fractional rig has smaller headsails which make tacking easier, which is an advantage for cruisers and racers, of course. The downside is that having the wind from behind often requires a gennaker or a spinnaker for optimal speed.
Sailing characteristics
This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.
What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?
The capsize screening value for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is 1.99, indicating that this boat could - if evaluated by this formula alone - be accepted to participate in ocean races.
What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?
The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 5.4 knots. The term "Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed" is widely used even though a boat can sail faster. The term shall be interpreted as above the theoretical speed a great additional power is necessary for a small gain in speed.
The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level.
The immersion rate for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is about 76 kg/cm, alternatively 426 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 76 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 426 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.
Sailing statistics
This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.
What is Motion Comfort Ratio (MCR)?
The Motion Comfort Ratio for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is 19.2.
What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?
The l/b ratio for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is 3.02.
What is Displacement Length Ratio?
The DL-ratio for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior is 327 which categorizes this boat among 'heavy cruisers'.
What is SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)?
The SA/D for Cape Dory Typhoon Senior with ISO 8666 reference sail is 17.7, with a 135% genua the SA/D is 20.5.
Maintenance
As balsa wood is used as sandwich core material special care must be taken in relation to work that require penetration of the sandwich construction in order to to prevent water to get in contact with the balsa wood. Otherwise the balsa wood will eventually rotten and be expensive/impossible to repair.
Dimensions of sail for fractional rig.
Are your sails worn out? You might find your next sail here: Sails for Sale
If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.
| Usage | Length | Diameter | ||
| Mainsail halyard | 22.3 m | (73.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib/genoa halyard | 22.3 m | (73.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Spinnaker halyard | 22.3 m | (73.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib sheet | 6.8 m | (22.4 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 6.8 m | (22.4 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 17.1 m | (56.0 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 15.0 m | (49.3 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Cunningham | 3.0 m | (9.8 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Kickingstrap | 6.0 m | (19.7 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Clew-outhaul | 6.0 m | (19.7 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
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