DS1 vintage and smaller mainsail

[Guest]

Purchased a Daysailor 1 this past weekend. Title indicates it's a 1974 vintage, but I'm not sure that's correct. There is no serial number engraved in the transom. There is only a small metal plate attached to the front flotation bulkhead in the cuddy. It shows these two numbers: hull #23352, class #4480.
4480 is the number on the sail. Anyone have any idea what year this might be? It's apparently built by Oday.

The mainsail does not have any reef points. Based on sailing a DS2 a couple summers ago, often times with winds approaching 20 mph, I'll want to add reef points to this sail. But what about just using a smaller mainsail? My sailing is the "casual" type, relaxing out on the water, no racing. Seems like a smaller main, say in the 80-90 square foot area size, would be a good option. Anyone try this? Comments? Any ideas on what sail might fit? Maybe one from an Oday Javelin?

Thanks for any input/information.

steve parsons (saabdrver-at-aol.com)

[Guest]

Perhaps I should add to the above that Id use a smaller mainsail all the time...not just to replace the standard mainsail when the wind picks up or as a substitute for reefing the regular mainsail.

steve parsons (saabdrver-at-aol.com)

[Guest]

If you strictly solo the boat its sounds like a great idea. I need to reef at about 12 solo. For two active sailors....the boat sails under full sail to 20 knots of wind. Over that the roughness of the water really becomes the limiting factor.. Id rather stay ashore than risk the boat in 20+ winds.

Harris (hg-at-myhost.com)

[Guest]

The hull #23352, is the serial number for the boat. It was the 23352nd boat built by O'day. Class #4480 - The 4480th Day Sailer built. That's the number to identify your boat if (or hopefully when) you join the Class association.

As to when it was built check out:
http://216.100.248.139/fleet56/articles ... rt.htmIt's also linked from the main web page as "Hull number index" under information.

Bob (rhunkins-at-pdq.net)

[Guest]

If your boat does not have a HIN engraved into the outside of the transom, then she will not be newer than 1972 model year, HIN requirement began with 1973 model year. My guess would be that your boat was built in 1969 or 1970, based on the hull# being 23352 (23352nd total boat built by O'Day) and my old 1969 (might have been 1968?) Widgeon was hull # 22698. This means that O'Day built 653 boats between building my Widgeon and your DS I, since O'Day built over 1000 boats each year, that would figure that our boats were built less than a year apart.Furthermore, O'Day built about 300-500 Day Sailers each year, so 4480 would seem to have been built about 10-11 years after the first DS was built in 1958.
As far as going with a smaller sail vs adding a reef, depending on the condition of your present sails, it will cost about $50-70 for a sailmaker to add reefpoints to your sail. If your sails are getting old and stretched out, replacing them is a good idea even if you do not race, since as the sails stretch, they get baggy and thus provide more heeling power and less speed. The less speed is not that much problem for a non-racer (although I still hate being slow!) but a new sail gan be flattened easier to reduce the heeling. A Javelin mansail will fit, I'm not sure how much shorter it will be on the luff, but the foot is the same length as a DS main. I'd go for the reef, it is cheaper and easier in the long run.

Rod Johnson, "SUNBIRD" (rjohnson24-at-juno.com)