yet another DS I grenie!

[brucybaby]

The anticipation of a first sail is like a first kiss, and it looks like you and Li'l Maggie will have a beautiful relationship for a long while to come. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

[triathjohn]

Hey Lil Maggie, looking good. I have a DS 1 but it doesn't have the little storage compartment on the port aft deck??? Mine is a newer DS1. Made in '84 by Spindrift.

[GreenLake]

What is there instead? Is the transom area glassed over to make more flotation?

It's really handy to mount a motor there.

[Lil Maggie]

Hey Lil Maggie, looking good. I have a DS 1 but it doesn't have the little storage compartment on the port aft deck??? Mine is a newer DS1. Made in '84 by Spindrift.

that's the Ice chest/motor well..clever, huh?

[Lil Maggie]

Took Li'l Maggie to Long lake in Harrison, ME today for a daysail...started out with very little wind but became a very nice 5-15 kt day...we were invited to race the PM races off Harrison town but declined due to having my 2-yr old son aboard and no spinnaker pole (left it at home...duh!)...my in-laws took some nice off-the-dock pictures of our putting out and our return, where I managed to heave-to and crab my way smoothly over to the dock in a very professional manner...pictures to follow


BTW, I seriously dislike lake-effect boat wakes...one runs into them and it feels the whole mast and rigging is gonna let go!

I like ocean sailing much better!

Cheers,
Mike J

p.s. Who owns "Magic Carpet"? it was moored off the Harrison marina, DS 1 with blue hul and white deck....

[GreenLake]

What tension do you have on your stays?

Crossing a wake, I don't get the feeling of the rig letting go, except when there's no wind and the wake makes the sail "slap". That does feel like unnecessary stress on the rig. But with wind filling the sail, it feels like a much smoother movement.

[Lil Maggie]

well not much tension...just enough to take slack off. I know it should get a bit more (need to start using the mast jack). Today with light to no wind, it felt like the mast was about to come off, especially when two or three boat wakes cross each other!....haven't had that feeling out on the ocean thanks to a light but mostly steady breeze...and I definitely felt that it needed a crank on the ol' mast jack...which I didn't do out of sheer laziness!

Have not measured tension on my rig at all but done it all "by feel"....and in the winds I've had so far (0-5 and 5-10 kts), I've managed at least hull speeds upwind (30º app. wind) and been over 6 kts a couple of times. How much tension do you have on your rigging?

Thanks
Mike J

BTW, pics are in:http://daysailer.org/forum/album_personal.php?user_id=2003

[GreenLake]

You need more tension to protect your rig.

I usually give it 4 turns, that's enough for me to be able to get a note when I "pluck" one of the shrouds. I read somewhere that it's supposed to be an F (in whatever octave) but as I don't have that kind of ear, I just settle for something that sounds like a bass string.

If you tack upwind, the leeward shroud is allowed to come slack, but not with 3 knots of wind. If they come slack with 8-10kn that is considered proper tension. If you expect higher winds, give the mast jack one additional turn.

Your feeling that you were damaging your rig was accurate. When there's no pre-tension in the shrouds your mast will swing from waves and then suddenly pulled up short when the shroud pulls tight.

With enough pre-tension, all that happens is that one shroud (e.g. windward) gets loaded more while the other (leeward) gets loaded less, up to the point that it goes slack. During that entire time, the mast sees positive tension on both sides, holding it in place.

[Lil Maggie]

speaking of mast jacks, do you have the original "mast jack handle"? or are using a pair of channel locks?...if you or anybody still have the original mast jack handle that came with these boats I'd like to see a photo or something...otherwise, I'd thought of sacrificing an old screwdriver of the proper diameter to fashion a jack handle, though the nut in mine has all the holes pretty worn out and out of round, so they need to be re-drilled for a tighter fit. The alternative would be to shave off bits of the mast jack nut every time one cranks it with channel locks....

Also I think that, again out of laziness, I should have raised the mast jack four turns (like Green lake says), then tighten the stays to the proper tension...then tighten/loosen mast jack to raise mast or adjust for heavier winds....lessons learned daily here!

Thanks GL!

Mike

[GreenLake]

The original is long lost. The tool passed on to me by the previous owner is some kind of center punch. The handle side of that fits nicely into one of the holes.

Worn-out holes are normal, apparently.

Make sure your jack is well lubricated. As it will come into contact with all the gear I stow in the cuddy, I got away from using standard grease and I now use bicycle chain lubricant. That works well and doesn't make the same kind of mess.

Without lubrication you think you got it tight, but you're just fighting friction, not tension.

My stays do not have separate adjusters - they are fixed length, so all I can do is play with the overall tension in the rig. If yours have adjusters, then you can use them to adjust the relative length between shrouds and forestay a bit (should have a small effect on mast rake) and then use the jack as a quick way to provide overall tension. (And of course, you can make sure your shrouds pull the mast to center).

The number of turns required should ideally be measured from the point where the stays just stop being slack. With my setup that's less than one full turn, but if your mast is a fraction shorter, or the stays a bit longer, you may need to count from a different starting point.

[Lil Maggie]

I noticed somebody else has the missing jack handle thing going but to keep some order I'll report on my progress:

-Got the boat back home yesterday and with my shop at hand I managed to fashion a mast jack handle from a piece of bronze rod punch I found in my "treasure drawer" (an assortment of tools left from my house's PO)...a few trips between boat and grinding wheel and I reduced the tip of the rod to a nipple that snugly fits on the holes of the jack nut, here it is:


Works great too

As for the rigging tension, I stepped my mast and slacked the turnbuckles on the shrouds; jacked the mast 3-3/4 turns and then started applying tension on all three stays, measuring from the tip of the mast to the chainplates to check for L-R alignment, and to the stern/deck point to check for rake following the guidelines on the North sails website, now found here:http://www.onedesign.com/tabid/25108/Default.aspx

With the jack nut up ~4 turns I tightened the shrouds till I got the 25'1" length and the desired low F note (though I think I only got it to Eb!); made marks for mast step placement & made sure there was enough tension on the fore stay.

However, other issues appeared when doing all this:
-when I got my boat there were several cracks along the cuddy coaming and sides caused by exploding rebar supports (these in turn caused by drilling cleat holes too close to the edge of cuddy, thereby admitting H2O in the rebar cavity....) I have provisionally dealt with the cuddy top issue by jacking the aft end of the cuddy with a PT 2x2 bolted to the keelson and screwed to a plywood backer block saturated w/epoxy & glued to the cabin top....
-well, putting the proper tension on the rigging compressed the boat sides enough to cause a separation between jack and plywood (screw pulled off) of ~1/4"....well, this sag was probably started by all those cracks in the cuddy to begin with, and I went repairing them without the mast stepped or rigging attached....This time I stepped the mast & adjusted rigging; got my 1/4" separation on jack post & cuddy, then wedged the gap with cedar wedges and re-screwed using a longer screw

The problem with old & abused boats...

Cheers
Mike J

[triathjohn]

What is there instead? Is the transom area glassed over to make more flotation?

It's really handy to mount a motor there.

Mine is just solid deck across the whole stern.

[GreenLake]

What I meant, you might be able to retrofit something like a motor well there - if you're handy with fiberglass. If you do, note that the factory-built ones have a drain hole.

[Lil Maggie]

Well, this week came my new mainsail from intensity with a reef line, so yesterday, despite being pretty windy, I raised my mast in my back yard & put on the new main (turning boat and trailer into the wind...) so far so good; then to try the new jiffy reefing setup.....OOPS!, what was that?...well that was the gooseneck slide letting go...!@#$%^&*!!!!

Only one of the tabs broke off at the weld, so off to repair it (drilled & tapped a hole through everything & threaded a 10-24 screw, cutting it off then putting a nut & washer on the flat end...solved!...oh, wait: hairline crack on weld on the other tab...well F!@#$! me!




A little epoxy on the cracked weld and off I went today with a friend to test out the new sails (ordered a new slide from DR marine & got it today), rigging adjustments and jiffy reefing:

1) Rigging tension, GL, the boat seems to point better especially in puffs..I'm getting a slight weather helm upwind now (goes away quickly when hiking out)...the mast & rigging don't sound like they'll flop off and I have no slack on the leeward shroud until about 8 kts wind (we hit some puffs over 12 today...all that with the shrouds at Eb (3-3/4 turns on mast jack). Was able to depower the main when needed (bending the mast despite tabernacle)...helps to have a new sail too!

2) almost reefed the main just for giggles (wasn't that windy), but with the provisional reef hook fashioned out a stainless S-hook bent open and lashed to the gooseneck with twine, I decided not to test my fix and chance a disaster while out sailing...

3) Sailing the DS1 under spinnaker...boy that was fun! even having my completely green friend at the helm..put the boat on a reach and raised the chute (the sheets I got with the chute are too springy so they must go!... three strand out, 1/4" double braided coming up!)...my only concern was the spinnaker pole (glad I shoved that oak dowel inside it now cuz she was bending some)....another must with that wimpy pole is using guy hooks on the guy...once I did that the chute & rig began to behave...we had the boat on plane for a couple minutes...but very puffy and shifty day



Last but not least, I am more than satisfied with the DS as a sailboat! great bang for the buck and putting a lot of smiles on this old guy!

Cheers,
Mike J

[GreenLake]

Spinnaker sheets: 3/16 works fine, no need to go to 1/4.