Just got myself a free DSII with trailer

[BillT]

Howdy -

Greetings from Central Virginia.

My wife and I recently bought a river house up near Reedville, VA, with a dock, and I've been looking for a nice little sailboat to go knocking about the creek and the larger river it opens into. I went and looked at one that had too much damage, and I've seen many that are priced too high. I found a couple that I really like, but they're several hours away (which doesn't necessarily stop me - I've driven 14 hours round trip to buy something I wanted), so I've been patiently biding my time and browsing Facebook Marketplace (which I do all the time anyway).

Last night, I saw a trailer sailer advertised for $100, about 45 minutes away. Long story slightly less long, the guy had bought the house from an old couple, they left the boat and trailer in the yard, and said they would come back and get it later. They never did; he contacted them, and the old man told him "just keep it".

So he put new wheels/tires on it so he could move it around the yard, and thought he would clean it up, but then decided he was never going to get around to it, so now he just wanted it out of his yard.

I went down there this morning and after chatting with him and looking at it, he said "honestly, I don't care about the hundred bucks. I just want it out of my yard. If you want it, you can take it."

I had brought my car hauler down with me, because I didn't know what kind of condition the trailer was in, so I pushed the whole boat and trailer up onto my car hauler and brought it home that way.

He had the mast, boom, all rigging, rudder with tiller, both sails in good condition in sail bags, and the trailer with new wheels and tires. The boat is filthy and will need some serious elbow grease to get it clean, and it will need some minor repairs here and there, but nothing tragic. Some of the hardware is damaged, so I'll have to replace a few small blocks and such, and replace all the running rigging, but I figure even if I spend a few hundred bucks on all that, I'll still be well ahead of the game.

One thing I'm going to need some assistance with is the proper rigging. There are lots of small blocks and fiddles and such and several cam cleats all over the place, and I'm just trying to envision how everything gets run. But I'm getting ahead of myself with that - the first step is going to be hours of power washing and scrubbing to de-gunkify this filthy thing.

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[GreenLake]

Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you go a "find".

It shouldn't be too difficult to get this boat going again. You don't mention your own level of sailing/boat experience. With a bit of background things will fall into place more quickly, of course.

The DS was meant to be sailed with very simple rigging, but the class association allowed owners to upgrade to somewhat more adjustable setups. Some of these upgrades make sense even if you are not sailing regattas, as they simply give better control, and you may need to find out for yourself in what camp the previous (original) owners belonged.

My usual advice is for people to put a new to them boat into the water with any rigging that will survive a maiden voyage (or two) and to use the experience to guide their choice of what tasks or upgrades to tackle next. If you haven't sailed a DS, you may need to get your mind around how that boat wants to be sailed to know what changes, if any, you would want for your boat.

For my own boat, I made it a guiding principle to neither treat it like a museum piece, nor to radically change the rigging. Instead, I made a long series of incremental changes which resulted in the process being as much fun as the result.

For a DSII, the Achilles heel, if you want, is the centerboard controlled by up and downhaul. That system has its complexities and failure modes that you might want to understand before going on the water. The forum is full of discussions of this issue, mainly in the DSII section as that issue is model-specific. You probably won't need to do all the repairs like the "nipple repair" and other upgrades that people have done, at least not right away, but you should be clear about how to keep tension on the lines so that you don't get a stuck CB on your maiden voyage.

There's a lot of stuff available in the older posts; you might want to spend a quiet evening or two scrolling into the past. The onsite search is barely functional, but you can use some other search engines and set them to search this site only and that way get to all the good stuff.

If your sailing experience is minimal, or not very recent and in need of a refresher, check out the "Basic Concepts" thread in the Seamanship section.

Otherwise, good luck. And if you have some part that you can't ID, just post a detail picture and someone might know an answer.

[BillT]

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks!

You don't mention your own level of sailing/boat experience.

About 16 years ago, I took several ASA sailing courses, and I bought a 1968 Pearson Wanderer 30 and had that for about 10 years. Didn't get to take it out as much as I would have liked, and it was a huge project, so I finally got rid of it. A good buddy of mine is a long-time sailor and I've been out on his boats several times, but he got rid of his last boat a few years ago, so yeah, it's been several years since I've been out under sail.

The DS was meant to be sailed with very simple rigging, but the class association allowed owners to upgrade to somewhat more adjustable setups.

Not sure how visible it is in the pictures, but there is a traveler track for the main fiddle block running athwart the centerboard trunk. Based on what I've found online so far, I don't believe that's original. So I'm assuming a previous owner added that.

I have zero intent of racing it or sailing it hard - just wanted something about this size to knock about the creek behind our river house and maybe adventure farther out into the Great Wicomoco River when conditions permit. I have no interest in hiking out with the rails down or anything like that.

For a DSII, the Achilles heel, if you want, is the centerboard controlled by up and downhaul. That system has its complexities and failure modes that you might want to understand before going on the water. The forum is full of discussions of this issue, mainly in the DSII section as that issue is model-specific.

Aha. Thanks for that heads-up. That might explain why someone has cut out a "window" on top of the centerboard trunk, all the way through the hull to where you can see the top edge of the centerboard.

Otherwise, good luck. And if you have some part that you can't ID, just post a detail picture and someone might know an answer.

Thanks! First step is going to be lots of scrubbing to get all the grime and crud cleaned away.

[GreenLake]

Just one example: if you adjust your traveler in response to a gust, you could ease your main without changing the leech tension and therefore avoid powering up the main when that's the last thing you want. I achieve a similar effect with a strong gang on my boat. The result is you can keep your main flat and need to hike less.

Sail controls are about control. Nobody dictates that this control can only be used in regatta mode.

Having a boat that points well or can weather gusts better makes it more enjoyable or safe than a simple rig, even for cruising or casual exploration. I have another boat that's radically simpler and that I solely use to potter around aimlessly. Still, if it pointed better, I would not have been stuck one day on the other side of the bay, unable to get home against wind and current.

That said, I personally find "Vang sheeting" more natural to use than a traveler on a boat like the DS, but if you've sailed on larger boats you may be familiar with using a traveler. That's why I recommend you try out what you have before making changes based on anybody's recommendation in the abstract. You'll get a much clearer idea what works for you and what must be fixed immediately or can wait for more experience.

Speaking of which, I hope yours will be as enjoyable as you are anticipating. Good luck.