Mystery - What do I have

[cygtoad]

Greetings,

Over the weekend I purchased a sailboat off Craigslist in NH. I is in pretty rough shape. While I have owned 3 sailboats in the past, this is the first time I have purchased a dinghy. Given her lines and dimensions I have deduced she is probably a DS1, but I am not certain. She is pre 1970 so no HID, and the paperwork is no help showing her to be a 2013 West Marine. Clearly not that. The sails have DS but no number. What is throwing me off are the seats. They are teak but I have not seen any wooden seats like them on the forum. They are of a slatted design rather than planks, and there is also teak flooring over the sole.

I don't know if O'Day numbered the early boats but there is a cockeyed number 2 on the right side of the transom. I would be hard to believe this was hull number two, but maybe. I think I read there were a couple of other manufacturers, not just O'Day so maybe on of those? Maybe someone here knows more about it? I will post some pictures.

Matt

[cygtoad]

Here is a profile pic...

[cygtoad]

What the wood seats look like...

[cygtoad]

Transom number 2...

[cygtoad]

Walk around movie link

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-5PuQSxaH8s5zy3hPLKabEOi-2povn6I?usp=sharing

[GreenLake]

Matt, you scored one of the early DS1s. Welcome to the forum. Since this is your first dinghy. Why now? What are your plans for it?

They had the wooden seats. There's a spreadsheet linked from one of the posts "DS1 Design Changes" and it gives some indication when which feature came in. I think yours might be from before 1960; I've seen one specimen of that age and the grooves that give a bit of faux planking effect on the deck are typical.

It looks like the hull was painted at some point. That would be superficial. Even if the gelcoat is damaged in some patches, it can be restored.

The mast looks like it's keel stepped with a mast jack. That's a nice setup that matches what I have on my boat. There's a small helper device that you could build with very little effort that makes raising a keel stepped mast easier. (I inherited it from a previous owner and have rebuilt it since because it's so practical). Look for "Raising a Keel Stepped Mast". (Here's a link to a post by someone who constructed this item from scratch: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6674 and here's a post with some pictures of my setup: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6837&p=41418&hilit=raising+a+keel+stepped+mast#p41418)

Given the age, the woodwork may have been (partially) replaced, but the wooden grating on the cockpit floor are a feature for all DS1s built before the DS2 came in in the 70s. However the wooden benches were replaced already in the 60s with laminated ones that serve as flotation tanks.

Some owners of these early DS1s have strapped flotation bladders under the seats.

That number "2" is not something that's found on other boats. Wild guesses include numbering applied by a sailing club.

Most info you find on this forum should be applicable to your boat, especially anything related to rigging.

[cygtoad]

Green Lake,

Thanks for the replying, the information you have provided is very helpful. To your "why now" question, I guess I am a sucker for a project. I like working with boats almost as much as I like sailing them. My last boat was a Sabre 34 in Maine. It was really great boat and so much fun, but so expensive to maintain. Just the storage fees and club fees would set us back 15-20 K per year, and that was with me doing a lot of the work. It was also two hours from my house. As my daughter got more involved in activities, we were just paying not to use it, so we sold her. I guess I was just looking for something to putz around with in this boat. I didn't want to be at the mercy of a boat yard any longer. This boat sits rent free in my yard. I don't need a lift or a davit to launch it and the shallow depth opens up options keelboats don't permit.

Yeah, she has about 3 coats of paint on her that I can see. She has some significant cracking in the cuddy, like something fell on her or she was dropped from the trailer or flipped without enough care. Hard to say. I crawled under her and can see a baseball size blob of epoxy at the trailing edge of the centerboard trunk. Maybe that is a weak spot for the boat? Maybe it was a leak that at prior owner was trying to address not so skillfully.

I will defiantly check out the mast step helper. So, the sealed aft compartment on the transom, and sealed area behind the seats is sort of inadequate for buoyancy? I guess more is always better.

Do you think this is an O'Day made boat? There is no badging, but it is an early boat so maybe not a thing until later, or it lost the badging along the way? I know there we other manufacturers but maybe those were overseas.

Lastly, when I saw the boat, I was thinking what a weird paint job, but then I saw another post with a boat opting to paint the cuddy red. Is that a DS thing? I have never seen this before.

[GreenLake]

Matt,

The original manufacturer was Marstal (sp?) Plastics. (This is from what I think I remember reading in other posts here on the forum, I don't have independent info). The way I put it together is that this was the firm that O'Day contracted for that work. When you read about multiple manufacturers for these boats, this is something that is sequential. As far as I understand the molds and rights to make the boats were aquired in turn by different builders, some of which innovated as well. But never two working in parallel.

You might like to scour the early/earlier forum post to find more information about your generation of DS1. Note that the division into sections (like "History") is somewhat recent, and also not super well enforced. So you are likely to find info under DS1, under History, perhaps even Miscellaneous, and sometimes as an aside under Repair.

For color scheme I'd encourage you to pick something that strongly appeals to you. I don't think there's a definite "original" color scheme that you could follow for "historical accuracy". Also, unlike other boats, the DaySailer can be rigged in different ways according to preference by the owner; that makes restoration to some "original" state likewise a bit elusive (let alone that the hardware has changed; all the early stuff is based on a material called Tufnol, which isn't really used by anyone).

My boat had been delivered with white hull and a deck color that I would call "pool bottom". Some previous owner had painted the deck and seats a warm red (with almost a hint of brown, definitely not the primary color red, but also not orange or maroon). That paint job has held up well, though not perfectly, there are scratches where I can glimpse what used to be there. However, I like that color so much that I would never attempt to "restore" the previous state.

The paint on the hull didn't fare so well, and I've since redone that (more than once); the hull color has stayed a consistent slightly off-white, no reason to change it.

For the cockpit bottom and CB trunk I used an air-curing gelcoat; I sail nowadays without the grating and wanted to have something better than just a layer of paint over the laminate. I tinted the gelcoat using universal tints in a medium gray. The bottom was rough and slightly uneven to begin with, because it was never supposed to be the surface you saw, and troweling on the gelcoat left some swirl marks as well, but the result looks good as a "floor" surface. The gray hides foot prints and dirt, so that works for me. You'll have your own decisions to make.

You do have the fittings for the original wire traveler in the back. That's not a bad setup for this boat, and you might want to retain it, rather than rush to do center-boom sheeting or even an in-cockpit traveler.

There is, at least by the time of the '63 model, a hull drain at the aft end of the CB trunk. You could use it to drain the hull when sitting on the trailer, or open it, and let it flood partially if at a dock. (That way, the water level inside and out would equalize and rainfall couldn't swamp the boat). I suspect the drain failed / got stuck and was covered, as there's no obvious weak spot otherwise in that area.

The cuddy may be supported by adding ribs. Easiest way is to find some thin-ish strips of foam or foam board and to laminate over them. Some people even went low tech and used a sliced from a paper towel roll. Anything to get a bit of separation between the deck and the new laminate to increase stiffness by creating a "beam" structure. if your laminate has sufficient skin thickness and separation from the deck, there's no reason to use a structural material (like wood). I my view, you only invite rot and add unnecessary weight.

[cygtoad]

Just got the concept of the mast jack. That would explain why my stays have no turnbuckles. It is actually kind of slick.

[GreenLake]

Yes. Beats any other setup I've ever seen on a dinghy.

Modern jibs will have a luff wire (or a bit of Dyneema luff line) which allows the luff to be tensioned to the point that it can take over from the forestay.

This makes the effective forestay tension adjustable. On my boat I added a simple 2:1 halyard tensioner. That does the trick and as long as the forestay is firm enough to hold the mast with the sails down, all is good.



Two views of the halyard tensioner. First view shows it stowed (second generation, line is yellow; a 2mm line is all I needed, but that may have been just a touch aggressive in downsizing . Second view shows it deployed (first generation, the line is blue). You can see how it attaches to a Prusik knot formed by an endless loop of Dyneema.

The loop needs thinner diameter stuff to hold better; as it is, my halyard is double braid spliced onto AmSteel and I use the splice as a point to anchor the Prusik knot. Otherwise it tends to slide under tension.

[GreenLake]

Why did I switch from blue to yellow? Main reason was color coding. My spinnaker downhaul is blue and goes to a blue cleat, so having another blue line was confusing. I forgot whether the yellow wasn't available in the 3mm size, or whether I just couldn't resist the challenge to find out whether 2mm would actually work. But now I have a yellow cleat for the yellow line, and all is good.

[cygtoad]

It is important to keep things simple for lines, especially when racing. Not sure if I will be racing again, but maybe. Haven't done that since the 1990's.

I got the seats and the floor out of the boat. What I can say is; the bottom of the boat in the last quarter has very little tone. It buckles under the it's own weight on the large trailer pads. I can see this happening due to the lack stringers or seats to help keep the bottom in check. The floor was soo heavy, like 100 lbs., and the seats are probably 50 lbs per. So that is 200 lbs in wood. That is a kind of a lot on a boat like this. I can see why you removed them.

Not sure what the next step should be. Glass in some stringers or maybe some core? I get where you are coming from with core. It always rots eventually. Every boat I have ever owned had some degree of core issues. I think there is a definite need for structure, not sure what yet. I don't think a sine wave in the hull of the boat is going to be too efficient, but maybe it would straighten out in the water.

[GreenLake]

The good news is that your early DS1 does not have the molded benches. That means that the entire hull surface is accessible for any work you might chose to do.

I love playing with fiberglass and I'm not particularly shy, except when it comes to more "modern" techniques like vacuum bagging. If you are up to that level, have a look at the thread entitled "The Core Project". I think that was a nifty approach if you feel you can master that technique and if you are comfortable with a more substantial project.

You write that you owned larger boats, so perhaps any project on a DS would feel limited by comparison?

Anyway, KC Walker used closed cell foam for the core, which looks like a good choice.

Alternatively you could do some stringers, which could even be made hollow, avoiding core issues altogether. However, while they would work great in limiting buckling of the hull at, say, the front or rear end of the trailer bunks, their effect is limited when it comes to transverse deformation of the hull.

If you set up some ribs or frames in addition to the stringers, that might help, but the challenge then becomes drainage. You might create a checkerboard of ridges outlining shallow indentations where any water can puddle on the original hull.

However, if your members are hollow, you could drill some weep holes in strategic locations (or glass in a short bit of tubing).

The slightly younger DS1s have the molded benches which provide longitudinal support with their upright faces. There is also, typically, a set of shallow stringers in the middle of the floor section between seats and centerboard. Depending on how far gone your hull is, in terms of stiffness, it might be enough to do two sets of stringers, one at the place where the uprights would be for the molded seats in the later DS1 versions.

Or, if you think your hull is already too soft, you might decide to read up on "The Core Project" and see if it's for you.

My boat has been sailed in flat water, and we often have moderate winds, so it's kept surprising stiffness despite being not much younger than yours. So I've been able to avoid thinking about this issue.

However, I widened and lengthened my trailer bunks at the earliest opportunity and made sure they are positioned under the place the seat uprights are glassed to the hull.

If I was seriously racing the boat, I might do something more about it. As it stands, I do take part in beer can racing, but it's no handicap, and often the real skill is in navigating through large fleets of boats from other starts. . .

Anyway, I like the way it gives me a fixed time to be on the water every week, and lots of other sailboats to share the fun with. I upgraded the rigging a bit (as described in many different topics) mainly with capabilities that I also use when just sailing around, because they so obviously make that boat sail better.

They include barber inhauls, a 12:1 vang for vang sheeting, ratchet blocks, halyard tensioner and a spinnaker.

[cygtoad]

OK so a little more info. First I pulled out the main looking for a hull number, as there isn't a reliable number on the boat. If the sail is correct, I have hull number 86. Given the characteristics of the the boat, that could be right, assuming the sails weren't purchased used. I makes more sense than the 2 on the transom. Still, a pretty early boat if it is 86.

[cygtoad]

OK, back to the boat itself. I took out the flooring and seats.