First Sail, Leak in Bilge and CB Problem

[psness]

Well, after two months of work, we finally got our 1979 DSII to the lake, rigged her up and put her in the water. Winds were a bit strong for my first sail and we discovered some problems the hard way. First - the boom seemed to sag too much with the main up?? Second - the wind was too strong and scared the kids so we sailed with just the jib. Ran a broad reach off the dock and when we turned around realized the CB didn't go down and we slipped into the shoreline. Couldn't even row upwind with the sails down, so I had to jump out and pull the boat along the shore in stomach-high water until we were close enough to the dock that we could yell for a tow. Third - the bilge took on a significant amount of water. All-in-all not a good first sail for me or the family. I had tried beforehand to silicone the CB bolt, but maybe it's not tight enough (I'm assuming that's the source of the leak). But then there's the problem of the CB not going down as it should.

[Peter McMinn]

Paul, if you have the lever-style board (old DS1), you need to have a rubber washer between the fiberglass of the CB trunk and the lever assembly. Properly installed, this should slow, if not stop any leakage from the pin hole. Washers are available for $5. from DR Marine or from Alan Jones--do a search for rubber washer on this site.

[psness]

I have the line/pulley system. I'm going up to the lake Friday to take another look, possibly put it in the water and put on my scuba mask. After buying the boat, I took it to a marina at another location and had them replace the rope. I was there when they dropped the cb and dismantled everything as I wanted to see the condition of the cb and how it all connected, then left before they put it all back in place. They didn't run the line exactly as before (and according to the drawing I gave them from this web site - they said they lost the drawing) but I confirmed with the guy before leaving that it went up and down properly. On the water last weekend, I couldn't get the thing to budge. Shouldn't it drop fairly easily?

[Guest]

Based on my experience in rebuilding my boat and installing the centerboard incorrectly and having it stuck in the down position with no way to raise it and thus braking the centerboard off and then having to buy and install a new one, they didn't install the wires correctly. I bet you will find that they ran the upper wire to the upper hole and the lower wire through the hole into the cuddy. the board is not movable by using the wires if they are installed this way. I suggest you get this corrected before you sail.
Jim
Capt. Scott

jim (jimb-at-dsouth.com)

[psness]

Well, I re-rigged the cb lines today and got it working. Yahoo!! The guy that rigged it at the marina left out the floating pulley (where the line from the cb is knotted) in the "pull-down" part and ran the line straight from the upper fixed pulley right down into the cb trunk. Don't know why, but it now works!