Thanks for the approval into the site. A little bit about me and then my 2 questions. Pretty much a new sailor even though I grew up on a lake and we had a little 14 foot sailboat but then again that we were just happy to get it moving a tad and then roll it (turtled a few times). I bought an O'Day 26 two years ago and still working on it and since I am so anal and everything has to be just right, I haven't sailed it yet but did buy a 36 foot slip on Lake Huron so hopefully next summer I will be using that however (long sentence)...I just bought a Daysailer to learn on and enjoy it when we go camping or just on local lakes whenever. The Daysailer I bought was in pretty darn good shape for the late 60's and I just got done this weekend repairing a sail rip (small), hoisting the sails and stepping the mast to see how easy it is (way easier than my 26--haha), rewired the entire trailer with LED lights and put a roller wheel on the trailer.
I do have a few questions though and would appreciate experienced O'Day Daysailer owners opinions or answers please.
1. Is the keel supposed to drop at all (even a tad) when the lever is tight all the way to hold it up? I see mine is hitting a roller on the trailer and dropped about 1/2" event though the lever is tight and since I haven't launched it yet, I am not sure once launched the keel will drop all the way having some issues with the mechanism so I thought I would ask.
2. I heard the original O'Day Daysailers did not have the mast extension with the hing tabernacle so one would have to drop the entire mast in the hole and then onto the movable mast riser. So here is my dilemma, that extension piece just pulls off the mast raising mechanism and that sucks when you are trying to step the mast by yourself for when you start to step the mast, the mast comes right out of the hole. Am I missing something here or is that mast extension supposed to be somehow secured to the raising mechanism?
I guess that is it for now but will most likely have more questions later--thanks everybody. Ooops, one more---is this site specific to O'Day or all Daysailers?