by jsbowman6 » Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:19 pm
I can give you my new impressions, having sailed bigger boats since 1985, someone here said the DSII is more like a Mazda Miata. Here's my perspective. I've only had mine for a few months and have been out in 2 to 20 mph winds. When you pull up the sails, it's ready to go, I mean it's moving. I'm still learning how to single hand this and find it a little challenging, but it will be doable. With a 3-8 MPH wind, it will move very fast beating into the wind. Above 10 mph, I've had to reef the main and it made a big difference to the rudder control. It will heel more than a cruiser, but so far I haven't turned it over. Overall it's a blast and will sail in much lighter winds than cruisers. I also have an 18 year old girl, but without her having sailing experience, I wouldn't turn her loose with this one. Everything happens fast with this boat. Now to be fair to the boat, I've never sailed a small boat until I bought this one. It operates like my old boat, just simpler. In my humble opinion, I would add or insure the boat has the following: Jiffy reefing system, down haul to pull down and hold down the jib and a tiller tamer. When you drop the main, it's in the cockpit with you, but that's not bad, I feel if it was still piled on the boom, the boat would still sail a bit. Some of these boats are cheap and good value. Look carefully at the fit of the trailer, I'm still messing with mine so the bow doesn't drag on the frame as I launch and pull the boat back onto it. Pull the main up, I'm thinking the boom should land about 24" above the cabin's roof, mine does not showing the mast has been cut, but it's enough, that it's usable. The method used to move the center board down in my opinion is a bad design. There is far more mechanism used than I feel is needed. If the design simply had a bit of weight on the center board, then 1 line could simple drop the board down and put it up. But O'Day designed 2 lines to rotate it down and one to pull it up, and it's a potential problem, although I've not had any......especially since I quit cleating off the down line.
These things are still being built brand new and for $17000 you can have a new one. Folks race these and there are rules provided and most anything can be bought for them from most marine stores and specific stuff can be bought from DR Marine.
Now what I've written is the opinion of a new to small boat sailor. I have learned more about sailing since I bought this than all the years of sailing a 22 footer. There is a wealth of information here on the forum and much more qualified folks to speak to this little boat. But mine shows impressions from me just having the boat for a couple of months. Would I buy it again.......I might have been a little more picky about what I got and looked for more single handing options. But I only paid $650 for the the boat and trailer and still have not broken $1000 total with all I've added to the boat and trailer.
Good luck.