Pat Anderson
New member
We are C-Brats #62, and have been in this forum since the beginning. We bought a CD22 in 2003 and a CD25 in 2005. The Venture was originally the Cape Cruiser, designed and built by Ben Toland, the original designer of the C-Dory (or one of them?) and some former C-Dory employees, including Buck Williams, who was in charge of the build of our CD 22 at the old Kent factory. As such, you could call the Cape Cruiser the C-Dory 2.0.
C-Dory was then owned by the Reynolds family, and they sued Cape Cruiser, the Ben Toland company. There certainly are some more than superficial similarities, but I thought the Cape Cruiser was enough different. The jury apparently disagreed. Strangely enough, a Google search now turns up nothing on the lawsuit (if it does, could somebody post the link you were able to find?). The upshot of the lawsuit is that C-Dory ended up owning the Cape Cruiser molds, renamed it the C-Dory Venture, and is doing very well with Ben Toland's C-Dory 2.0.
This thread from about seven years ago has a bit more information and initial opinions. There is a lot of history in this thread that new C-Brats might find interesting. The consensus then seemed to be that the Cape Cruiser aka C-Dory Venture was a superior boat in a number of respects. I personally still believe the Venture 23 is superior to the C-Dory 22 but they are both excellent boats.
That said, we are VERY happy with our 2005 C-Dory 25 Cruiser that was built in the Reyolds C-Dory company's Auburn factory, but only (we think) because we visited the factory frequently and Andrew Custis, now with Ranger, took good care of us.
Here is the photo album (2 pages) of the build of Daydream, from the hull coming off the mold to emerging from the factory 's "birth canal" and our first sundowner (first of many!) in the cockpit at home!
C-Dory was then owned by the Reynolds family, and they sued Cape Cruiser, the Ben Toland company. There certainly are some more than superficial similarities, but I thought the Cape Cruiser was enough different. The jury apparently disagreed. Strangely enough, a Google search now turns up nothing on the lawsuit (if it does, could somebody post the link you were able to find?). The upshot of the lawsuit is that C-Dory ended up owning the Cape Cruiser molds, renamed it the C-Dory Venture, and is doing very well with Ben Toland's C-Dory 2.0.
This thread from about seven years ago has a bit more information and initial opinions. There is a lot of history in this thread that new C-Brats might find interesting. The consensus then seemed to be that the Cape Cruiser aka C-Dory Venture was a superior boat in a number of respects. I personally still believe the Venture 23 is superior to the C-Dory 22 but they are both excellent boats.
That said, we are VERY happy with our 2005 C-Dory 25 Cruiser that was built in the Reyolds C-Dory company's Auburn factory, but only (we think) because we visited the factory frequently and Andrew Custis, now with Ranger, took good care of us.
Here is the photo album (2 pages) of the build of Daydream, from the hull coming off the mold to emerging from the factory 's "birth canal" and our first sundowner (first of many!) in the cockpit at home!
