[mstern]

I can tell you from experience that you do not want to sail a Catalina 22 or a Seaward 23 with six people. You will be sitting shoulder to shoulder, with no room to haul on jib sheets or move much at all. Even with four people, everyone has to be ready to move and help with every tack. That's just the way it is. All of the boats mentioned here would be great starter trailer sailers. The swing keel or centerboard boats are better for trailering for obvious reasons. I've said it before on this and other forums, but it bears repeating: the Oday keel/centerboard design is better than the Catalina swing keel design. With the Oday, all of the ballast is in the stub keel; the centerboard is lightly weighted and easily controlled with one line that is lead to the cockpit. You always know the position of the board just by looking at the pendent line. With the Catalina, all of the boat's ballast is in the swinging keel; it does mean a lower COG, but you have all of the ballast hanging by one pin. And, because the keel weighs a lot, you need a crank to raise and lower the keel. This mechanism is one more thing that needs maintenance and can break. Not to mention that the only way you can know the position of the keel is to fully raise or lower it. There is no way to see where the keel is positioned without doing so.

One other factor in favor of the Oday's (I'm including the 22, 23 and 25 here): the head is behind a real door. If you want to use the head in the Catalina 22, you are out in the middle of the cabin with no privacy. Some people have rigged up a curtain, but that didn't cut it with my wife. Never, I repeat never underestimate the value of this feature to the ladies.

That all being said, the C22 is the most popular production cruising sailboat ever for good reason: a forgiving sailer with good performance and solid value. And Catalina is still in business, supporting the boats. Oday is long gone. I have owned a C22 and currently own an Oday 23. I just like the Oday better.

YMMV

 

[mstern]

I guess my two questions would be...

1) How forgiving is the O'Day compared to the Catalina with the swing keel? That is going to matter a lot more to the lady because she isn't big on anything resembling a thrill ride.

2) How much harder is the O'Day to get on and off a trailer with the stub keel vs the Catalina with the smoother bottom?

I've found them to be fairly equal in their forgiving qualities; they are both equally comfortable in winds up to 15 knots. Somewhat experienced sailors will be ok up to 20 knots. Above 20 knots, the ride gets wet and uncomfortable. I don't see a big difference between the two in ride or comfort, except, I found that when sailing at more acute heeling angle, the Catalina rudder loses it's bite sooner than the Oday, and will round up into the wind whether you want it to or not. some people view this as a safety feature, some as an annoyance. Your call.

I've never trailered either, but my guess is that the Catalina is marginally easier to launch. But even the Catalina's keel doesn't retract into the hull completely; there is a still a "fin" along the bottom of the hull even when fully retracted.

 

[mstern]

One calm day we sailed with eleven people! That was four little kids up on the bow playing rhyming clapping games, one teenager napping in the cabin, and six adults in the cockpit. Mostly we sailed with four to six people on board. A good time was had by all.

Eleven people on a C22 is just too many. I'm not sure if that exceeds the design max on that boat, but it certainly is just too many people to safely deal with any contingencies. I don't care how small some of the passengers are; in fact, I think their general inability to help in an emergency makes them more of a liability than an equivalent adult.

I'm glad that everyone had a good time, but IMHO, before you let that many people on your boat again, you should ask yourself what you would do if you had to do an emergency tack with four children on the foredeck, and six adults crammed into the cockpit.