DSI oddities

[Guest]

I recently purchased a 1971 DSI. There are several items that are different on this DSI that I have not seen on other DSI's. There is no well in the stern above the transom on the port side, there are no shelves on either side of the cuddy and there is no wooden "seat" or "thwart" between the center board housing and the port and starboard bench seats (and no evidence that there ever was). The rest of the boat is identical to a DSI we had in the early 70's; wooden combing, wooden floor boards and small wooden floor unit against the transom (total of 3 panels, not 5). The centerboard handle, hardware, riging etc, are all the same as our previous DSI. The jam cleats for the jib and main sheets are mounted on small wooden blocks on top of the centerboard housing. I don't have the hull number handy, but the sail number is in the mid 700's. Has anyone seen a similar configuration?

Andrew (amartin-at-pizzagalli.com)

[Guest]

We have many vintages of Day Sailers at the Webster Sailing Association. The older Day Sailers do not have the well on the aft deck, but all DS1's have a thwart to add stiffness and support. I suspect some past owner removed the thwart to allow for more room foreward. If this is truely a DS1, then I would figure out a way to install new thwarts.

The shelves under the cuddy must have been removed also. Check to see if the brackets are still there. I recently built shelves for my Spindrift DS1 which never had shelves.

Roger Livingston

Roger Livingston (rnlivingston-at-tccsecure.com)

[Guest]

I hate to break it to you Roger but not all DS1s have thwarts. I have hull No 765 and no thwarts were ever attached, nor was there a shelf under the cuddy. My DSI is also quirky with a wire traveler with no adjustments, a single jam cleat on top of the centerboard housing for the jib sheets and before I installed a 2/1 block on the centerboard housing, there was no block to control the main sheet. My shelf under the transom has 5 slats, not 3.

Steve Link (sjlink502-at-aol.com)

[Guest]

Steve, my boat has the same non-adjustable wire traveler. I think I may have confused everyone with my description of the floor boards. There is one unit under the transom and two floor board units (one on each side of the center board) from the bulkhead in the bow to where they abut the transom unit. I have seen postings that discribe a total of 5 floor board units, which must mean that they are two piece units instead of one, on each side of the center board housing. My boat has one very long unit and each sise of the housing made up of 1/2" x 4" (approx.) mahagony planks.

Roger, there is no evidence that there was any thwart intalled on my boat. The bench seats have the factory gel-coat on them and there are no bracket holes in the seats or on the centerboard housing.

Andrew (amartin-at-pizzagalli.com)

[Guest]

I stand corrected. Over the years there were a number of variations of the DS1. In 40 years, I never seen it built without a thwart, but it looks like it exists.
I assume the boat sails well, so I would leave well enough alone. As for shelves...you might want to hang nets as suggested in other postings.

Roger Livingston (rnlivingston-at-tccsecure.com)

[Bob Hunkins]

Day Sailers produced in the 700-800 series are likely not to have thwarts. Quite a few were produced without them.
Nolan Richards from Alabama has sailed #857 for many, many years and it does not have thwarts. There is probably no need to add them to your boat, however, boats that had them installed by the builder should not have them removed.

[Guest]

I spent some time on Cape Cod in July and found several DSIs without wells, thrwarts or shelves (I also found the DSI that I raced 30 years ago. Rigged and looked exactly the same, only a little more used!). I noticed that the gunwales on all of these boats return beyond the intersection of the hull and the transom and were about a foot apart at the intersection of the rudder head. All other early DSI gunwales stopped just after they turned the corner of the hull/transom intersection.

Steve, I have do not have an I.D. plate that I can find on my boat. Were is yours located?. My sail number is #766 and the previous regitrations list the Hull (class) number as #766. The boat has a white hull with a light blue deck. All of the boats without thwarts, wells and shevles that I saw (4 total) were this color combination only.

Andrew (amartin-at-pizzagalli.com)

[Charlie Harper]

I just saw this post today. I bought a DS, sail #1123 last year. It was pretty much un-altered. It did not have a thwart, cuddy shelves, nor a main sheet block on the centerboard trunk. This was all clearly "stock". I did add thwarts and a platform to mount my main sheet block on the CB trunk. The thwarts stiffened up the CB trunk signifficantly. My boat also is a white hull and the deck/cuddy is a turquoise blue green color. When I opened up the seat tanks I found that it had never had any floataion either.

Charlie Harper
charlieh@sbcglobal.net

[sailorkevo]

For two years running now we have sailed t nationals, and both time a gentleman from the south named Nolan Richards, shows up with his boat with no thwarts and has measured in both times. Knowing hte heavy scrutiny of the measures at nationals I am assured that some early Daysailer between the earyl 600 and below design and before the thousands were testing grounds for what the boat needed and how it should be affixed.

Kevo

[Phill]

In 2002, The Day Sailer Board of Governers passed a constitutional amendment to our by-laws:

By-Law 3, rule 5.17
Thwarts (the sturctural memebers, usually wooden, that laterally tie the upper centerboard trunk to the seats) may not be removed, unless replaced by equivalent centerboard trunk and athwartship support.

Basically, we can not modify the hull and structure as manufactured.
If you take out the thwart braces, pull side to side on the top of you CB trunk and then imagine how far it will move if you are standing on the end of the CB trying to right a capsized hull. The only thing holding the trunk in the boat will be the unsupported 90 degreee fiberglass joint between the trunk and the hull. Insufficient and possibly dangerous.

The intent of this rule is to make sure that boats manufactured with this structure, do not take these braces out and jepordize the strength this member gives to our CB trunks. Most boats manufactured without these braces, did have other original manufactured structure that provided stiffness to this area. As with so many other differences in how our boats were manufactured, You git what you bought. Just as we can not take out our floatation seat tanks to copy the "3 digit" wooden seats, we can not take out our thwarts to copy a limited run of boats manufactured differently.

Phill Root