Just bought a DS I

[AlanH]

daysailer-port.jpg (290.04 KiB) Viewed 1577 times

I''ve been sailing for years, mostly keelboats and overwhelming shorthanded, but I've had the itch to do some dinghy cruising. So today i picked up a '69 DSI for a reasonable price. It has relatively new standing and running rigging, the hull is in good shape, and all things considered I'm happy with it. The jib is crispy, but discolored. I'll try giving it a scrub with soap, on my deck. The mainsail is pretty old, the cloth is soft and it's also discolored the way the jib is.However, both are functional. The trailer is in good condition. I just drove it home, 119 miles from the pickup spot to it's new home in dry storage with no issues. My Subaru had no problems. Here's a photo.


This will be fun! I don't think there's any Daysailer action on San Francisco Bay any more, but maybe I can zip down to Morro Bay now and then for a good thrashing at the hands of more experienced DS skippers and crews!

[AlanH]

A good scrub in the driveway got most of the brown stains out of the sails. They're pretty discolored at the corners, especially the jib at the tack and clew, but overall, much better. I'll put a reef in the mainsail myself, as I have some leftover sailcloth and a substantial sewing machine. Setting a grommet is not a big deal. The jib is actually in really good shape. The main won't win any races but it'll get me across the estuary.

I've managed to get half a storage slot, shared with another DS, in the storage yard in that photo. That's great, as it's half the price since we're sharing the space, and it's 15 minutes from my house. There's electricity on-site, if I used a really long extension cord!

[GreenLake]

Cool, sounds like you are all set.

[AlanH]

So, I have the "mast through a hole in the deck" version of the boat, not the tabernacled-mainmast edition. I picked up the mast, solo, today and I MIGHT be able to jockey it in there without some sort of overhead lifting point but I'm very much not sure of that. Is it common for folks to convert to a tabernacled system?

I expect there's GOT to be a thread on this forum, somewhere about this.

[AlanH]

---I expect there's GOT to be a thread on this forum, somewhere about this.

Ta-Daaa!!

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6937&p=42056&hilit=tabernacle#p42056

OK, I'll be making something like this.

[GreenLake]

I am really satisfied with this system for raising keel-stepped masts. I singlehand the boat quite often. If there's a friendly bystander at the ramp, I may ask them to "catch" the mast, because moving it forward onto the cradle by myself requires getting off the boat and walking back and forth, but I don't need a helper to actually get it vertical or to lower it. I'll ask the same helper to undo the forestay; saves a trip forward. So it's more than just doable, alone, but with any crew, even casual crew it's a snap.

[AlanH]

Clearly, some kind of 2-step folding stepladder is going to be a must-have, here shortly. After an hour of crawling in and out of the boat without one, I borrowed one from a neighboring boat (returned it when I was done) and that made everything 10x easier. OK...first purchase.

[GreenLake]

Seems like a smart thing. I still manage without, but it used to be easier . . .