New Boat for AlanH

[AlanH]

I've been wanting to do some dinghy cruising, like...forever. I have friends in Scotland that do it, and Tchoup's very own ROG thread is really tempting. Courtesy of Pat Broderick, I have plans for a Caravel, 14'6"foot pram dinghy, like a Mirror on steroids, but will I ever build it? I spotted an ODay Dayailer I on craigslist for a good price, so I took a deep breath and bought it. The UK cruising dinghy of choice is the Wayfarer, which is almost exactly the same size as a DS, though they're laid out differently.

There's a strong DS fleet in Morro Bay, so when they pop up on Craigslist down there, they're a bit pricier. Ditto for Portland, but I'm not driving to Portland to buy a daysailer! However, if I'm dying to race the boat I can take it down to Morro Bay. I just brought this one down from Auburn today and it trailed just great behind my Subaru.

The is a '69 Daysailer I, the original model. It's lacking some flotation inherent in the Daysailer II but then the boat is more open,easier to get around in. You can see how open the cuddy is, in the photo. Everything in the boat is in remarkably good shape, though the sails are stained. The jib is a Pineapple and still quite crispy, but $%^&( UGLY. The mainsail is pretty soft, it's also ugly. It's a Baxter and Cicero, I think that tells me how old it is!

The plan is to messabout in the Delta, maybe do the Texas 200, maybe do a three-week messabout in Puget Sound. I'm 68, crawling in and out of a dinghy is just going to get harder so let's get to it!

 

[Intermission]

I've been wanting to do some dinghy cruising, like...forever. I spotted an ODay Dayailer I on craigslist for a good price, so I took a deep breath and bought it.

That kind of blows any excuse you had for not coming to the cruise out.

 

[BobJ]

Great boat! We had a Daysailer II for many years when the kids were young - think kids in car seats sleeping up in the cuddy cabin. From an old FB post:

"Several years later I was wanting a sailboat for the family. I looked in the paper, saw an ad for a cheap used Daysailer, and Tigger came into our lives. "Tigger" because it was orange, bouncy, "funfunfunfunfun"- you get the idea. Tigger had had a hard life. It had been t-boned amidships and had a big crack there and in the center, top of the cuddy cabin*. There were chips and chunks missing here and there but the sails were in good shape, as was the trailer. We would take it camp-sailing, even towing it up to Whidbey Island a couple times. It was a great boat for a young family and it sailed really well.

After several years I took Tigger to Kim Desenberg, who then had his shop in Alameda. Kim made Tigger look like a new boat. We had it for a long time and made many great memories with it."

Tigger had a fairly flat main with a reef so I was able to sail it in big breeze. It's a good, tunable rig and you can get some decent performance out of it. A Daysailer I beat me in the RYC Small Boat Midwinters this past series.

* I looked at your photo. Stepping the mast is tricky - your caber-tossing skills will help. Just don't step on the cabin top back near the edge.

 

[Tchoupitoulas]

Nice Alan! We must revive the SF RAID.
Also, come do midwinters.

 

[AlanH]

Bob, I love the Tigger photos. What a mob of kids! ---> Perfect.

Tchoup...I'm down for the SSS RAID! Now, Midwinters?

The sails got a driveway scrub job today and about 80% of whatever brown stuff was staining them has come out. They really look pretty decent, except at the corners, which are discolored. I will put in a reef point in the main. (just have to find my leftover sailcloth) and 90 minutes of sewing, set two grommets, and done.

I got a slot in the Redwood City dry storage today, sweet! It's 15 minutes from my house.

 

[AntsUiga]

I just got back from Huntington Lake where the High Sierra Regatta was held. There was a class for Day Sailors - something to consider for 2026. As for the physical effects of sailing a dinghy, I spent a delightful 3 1/2 hours sailing the Deer Isle Koster, and my body knows it. Here is a photo of Skip and Chris sailing MAD, tanbark sails.

 

[AlanH]

Yeah, the MBYC co-sponsored the Nationals this year. There used to be a fleet in Fresno, which is how the thing at Huntington Lake got started. For that matter there used to be a fleet in Palo Alto, but that's been decades ago, now. I'll need a new mainsail, if I want to race, that's for sure. I suspect that the Morro Bay fleet is kind of like the Mercury fleet here on SF Bay. Those guys have owned their boats for 30 years and know every little detail. They're all really good tactical sailors. So if I trailer the boat down there for a weekend regatta, I'll probably get spanked good and hard, but what the heck.

Next up is getting the mast up! I'll have to get/make a cockpit cover before winter gets here. The polytarp that's on it now won't last that long and it's not big enough, anyway.I have some spare fiberglass flexible tent poles left over from a junky old tent. Those plus 5 yards of waterproof ripstop nylon should make for a nice cruising tent over the cockpit. (not as tall as this one...)

 

[Critter]

Congratulations Alan! My dad's third boat was a Daysailer, bought in his third year of sailing -- he went through boats fast, but he owned the DS from 1966 to sometime in the early 70s. He raced in the Palo Alto fleet, usually with my sister as crew. I only raced with him once, can't think why. But the whole family daysailed a lot, and I remember beach camping on Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho.
Max

 

[AlanH]

Little projects I'm doing before the first sail: A.)Replace a clevis pin on the mast where the p.o. put a nut and bolt. It'll wear into the aluminum in the mast. B.) wire the port shroud back into the spreader slot (done)..would kinda suck to have it fall out during the mast-up process. C.) make some sort of raised mast pivot point. The original daysailer I's through the late 60's didn't have masts on a tabernacle. You had to get the mast upright and drop it through a hole in the deck and onto the mast base, on the keel. Pushing up a tabernacled mast is no big deal, but lifting this 20 feet mast, manually, and holding it steady and then putting it nicely through a hole in the deck just-so is pretty darned tricky even for a cabertosser. So...