DaySailer.org Forum

I’ve read that DS boats are prone to trunk leaks. I believe mine is leaking as well. The boat is now out of the water, upside down in a repair shop. Can anyone tell me where the typical leak spot is?

Also, what motor mounts are folks using?

Thanks in advance.
Jim in Edenton NC
1984 DS3

Without evidence and just based on speculation, my assumption would be that the trunk designs for the DSIII and DSII have some similarities. I would read the posts in the DS2 section for suggestions. We had some recent discussions. They discuss different designs of the pivot, and it would be important for you to identify how yours is designed. Do you have the pin resting on wedges secured by plates? If so, your leak is unlikely to come from the pivot.

Do you have the same arrangement of up/downhaul lines for the CB? Then look for discussion about leaks around them.

Is your leak worse after the boat was sailed at speed, or is it happening at anchor/dock. In the former case, it's definitely the lines (or some other idiosyncratic leak near the top of the trunk), in the latter case, you may have an issue with the pin (depending on configuration) or a possible crack where CB trunk meets the hull.

That latter kind of damage can occasionally happen for a variety of reasons specific to an individual boat.

Happy hunting.

Motor mount: if you transom looks similar to the DS2's, you should be able to apply any experience shared by people that's specific to the DS2 (as opposed to the older DS1. which have a different type of transom). If you can get by with a motor small enough that it can be hung directly from the transom, you would be better off, because the DaySailers really don't like weight at the stern, and a motor mount pushes any weight further aft. However, if you are stuck with using a particular motor, and if that motor doesn't have sufficient shaft length, a motor mount it will have to be.

If you're not committed to a particular motor, there are many discussions here about what people find ideal. You'll notice that motors are a topic of divergent views and strong opinions.

The forum internal search function is braindead, but

Code: Select all

forum.daysailer.org motor

or

Code: Select all

forum.daysailer.org motor mount

entered into the browser's search/address bar should work instead. Some search engines will show only one result for the fourm, but have the little ". . ." where you can select to "only include results from this site" and then you get a whole page full of all the different discussions we've had here.

Good luck.

GL, thank you. I just realized that I posted in the wrong section, my boat is a 1984 DS2. There is another possibility: when I tip the boat up (on its trailer), I noticed water leaking out of the bottom most rudder bracket screw. That screw doesn’t go through the transom to the cockpit, it must go into the bilge cavity. If water can come out, it can go in also. But the boat takes on more water than what could get by a screw.

The guy that’s working on it is going to strengthen the glass around the hull / trunk area and reseal the rudder mount screw holes. That would leave only the centerboard uphaul and down haul openings. (I don’t have a downhaul line on my board, it seems unnecessary.) If those are leaking underway, I guess there’s not much to do about it except pump the water out if it gets too much.

Thanks for your help.
Jim

OK, I will move your posts and correct the 3 to a 2 in the opening one. What I suggested about reading up on existing posts goes double now that you identified your boat as a DS2.

If you don't have a downhaul, I would expect your CB to swing back whenever your boat goes a bit faster, unless you've added some not-class legal weights to it. Having the CB swing back is not something you'd want, and it also would put slack into the uphaul. I don't own one of these myself, but from reading everyone agrees that tension should be kept on the uphaul so as to prevent it from jamming in the CB trunk.

The downhaul is usually not where the leak is, but the uphaul. Look for the "nipple" fix in older posts.