Mainentance Question - Propping up my DSII

[pjk170]

Hi,

I want to take my DSII off of the trailer and place it on cinderblocks. We have some dings to fix on the underside of the boat and we figured it'd be easier to do if it was off the trailer. So my question is...Does anybody have any suggestions on how we can get the boat off the trailer???

One that i heard was to lift the stern off the back of the trailer and place cinderblocks (with a piece of wood between the blocks and boat) underneath both sides of the stern. Then lift the bow of the boat, pull the trailer out and then gently lower the bow onto cinderblocks that had been placed underneath (after the trailer was rolled away). Does this sound reasonable??

Thanks!

[talbot]

A couple of options. One is to hoist it in the garage, pull the trailer out, and lower it down. There was a discussion of this in the forum last year.
A caution: hoisting will take a winch or jack. I had a hard time with a block and tackle.

Another caution: make sure your garage will support the weight. It may take some reinforcing. This was also discussed in the forum.

Option 2: See Roger's book on DSII maintenance. You anchor the stern to a tree or other bombproof anchor (I actually put a sling around the whole boat, running it through the bow eye to keep it from sliding off.) Use your vehicle to pull the trailer out from under the boat a little at a time, supporting the hull as you go. I put mine on reinforced sawhorses. Getting the boat back on the trailer with the trailer winch is a bit more dicey. It's a big strain on the bow eye. But it works.

The one problem I haven't solved is getting the whole bottom clear of supports for painting. The racers at our local club drag the boats off onto the yacht club lawn and careen them. But I'm not in the club and live on a precipitous lot. I'm thinking of some kind of support around the side that lets the boat rest on that curved edge where the hull and deck join. But I haven't figured out how to engineer it yet. Any other suggestions?

[Roger]

easier than placing on sawhorses, let the trailer tilt, (without the vehicle attached) and pull the trailer out from under the boat. Bow winch on, and let out slowly, and transom anchored etc, as indicated in the prior post.

When the boat is on the grass, (and with the mast up) pull on the main halyard to pull the top of the mast down to one side, and the boat will roll over quite easily. Tie it down and work on it while standing beside the hull... That's a lot easier than trying to my overhead repairs.

To bring the boat back onto the trailer, let it upright again, then tilt the trailer, attach the boweye to the winch strap and start winching the trailer back under the boat. The transom tied to a tree or something substantial will keep the boat from moving, and only the trailer will move. At a certain balance point, pull the tongue down and keep rolling the trailer under the boat. This works really well with rollers. If you have bunks, wet them and the hull well before this procedure.

The procedure and picture are on page 78 of my book. If you don't have a copy and want one e-mail me at roger02 att mts dott net or check the sticky at the top of the DSII forum.

Good luck with your repair.

[talbot]

Any suggestions for the problem of getting access to the whole bottom below waterline? I could drive out to a park and careen the boat for a day, but I'd like to be able to leave the bottom exposed for a few days for repair and letting epoxy and paint set. I guess "find a friend with a flat lawn" is one approach. I'm working on that.

[Roger]

I careened mine in the boat storage parking lot, and left it careened overnight. Nobody bothered it. I painted the upper exposed half of the hull one day, the next day, careened it to the other side, and left it overnight to cure, then rolled the trailer back under it the next day. Perhaps find a pasture, school yard over the easter break, a vacant lot, or as you say a buddy with a big lawn.

[Baysailer]

For bottom work or centerboard work I prefer to turn it completely over so I can work more comfortable and controlled. Probably the easiest way is to enlist some other people to help you but I of course usually do it alone with some kind of jig I rig up. The jigs usually work better in my mind than in practice but I have flipped many sailboats-not the DS yet though.

Fred

[GreenLake]

I found a discussion of a way to lift the DS with tackles and "endless" loops of line somewhere and built a system like that.

For the tackle I used a 4:1 purchase and a 2:1 cascade. One set at each end of the boat, or rather 3'-4' in from each end. This handles the weight quite easily, but the cascade limits the range along which I can lift the boat to half the range of the tackle, so to get the boat from trailer to ground, I may need to rest it on blocks half-way and reset the tackle.

To hold the boat suspended I use two ropes (5/16" or 3/8" work fine) which I knot into a sling. They go through a block at the end of each lifting line. That allows me to rotate the suspended boat around its long axis. As I rotate the boat, the loop runs through the block. A true endless loop with a splice would work best, but with a bit of care positioning the knots I can rotate the boat to where I want it to get at the underside.

I don't have the space to work on it when it's upside down, so I went for 110 degrees, leaning it against one wall and supporting it with styrofoam and wood blocks under the rub-rail. I rotated the boat in the slings to close to vertical, set it down on the suppors and then tipped it all the way.

As a precaution, as soon as I pull out the trailer from underneath the boat, I place a styrofoam board on the floor to prevent any real damage if there ever is an unexpected drop.

[mainegrw]

Recently, my grandfather came up with a great solution for painting and working on the bottom of the boat. He owns a Marshall Sanderling, which is much too large and heavy to careen in his back yard. So this being the case, this year he designed a boat lift of sorts that utilizes a large wooden frame made of 2X10 (mostly), and 4 one ton chain falls. Two straps are then strung under the stern and bow of the boat and are attached to the chain falls in the 4 corners of the frame. Ropes are then used to secure the straps together in order to keep them from sliding apart. then, 4 people can easily pick the boat right off the ground. This worked out great. All of the parts were available locally, and we were able to construct it inside one weekend. Being that it worked on that boat, it should have no problem working on the DS II, which we will find out in a week or so when mine gets to ride up on it. I have a photo in my gallery of the frame constructed, and when I have the opportunity, I will be adding photos of the whole operation as it happened. It is also important to note that we set the boat on to poppets after we rolled the trailer away so that it was safer to work on.

[pjk170]

Wow, thanks for all the hints everybody.

But I have another question in regards to what Roger stated:

"When the boat is on the grass, (and with the mast up) pull on the main halyard to pull the top of the mast down to one side, and the boat will roll over quite easily. "

Seems that pulling the mast down via the main halyard would put a lot of stress on the tabernacle. Should this be a concern??

[GreenLake]

Seems that pulling the mast down via the main halyard would put a lot of stress on the tabernacle. Should this be a concern??

I don't think so. First, the force that you apply at the top of the mast is only a fraction of force from the weight of the boat, due to the length of the lever arm.

This force gets taken up by the stay on the far side (tension) and the mast (compression). (The near shroud will see less tension as the mast is pulled sideways, therefore, the mast compression to compensate for that is no longer applied, and can be subtracted. The total increase in compression is a bit reduced, as a result.)

If you draw a quick diagram, you'll see that at 45 degrees, the compression force is roughly double the force at which you pull from the halyard. So the load on the tabernacle shouldn't be excessive.

That was the long answer. The short answer is that this exercise is similar to sailing in winds that would heel your boat to 45 degrees (assuming a weightless crew). This is equivalent to sailing flat in the same winds with real crew hiking. You know your boat can take that. The only difference is that when you pull on the main halyard the entire sideways force comes at the top -- instead of being distributed along the length of the mast.

This puts an additional bending stress on the mast at the point where the stays meet the mast. (Especially, if you don't have the diamond stays). Because the mast is so long, the sideways force needed to tip the boat should be so little that there's probably no cause for concern.

[Roger]

the weight on the top of the mast required to hold the boat down is less than a 25# cement block. In fact you can hold the mast down with one hand, so the stresses, (as mentioned by a previous poster) are less than if you were sailing her.