Broken stay

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Broken stay

Postby Jason_Abernathy » Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:53 pm

I just purchased a early 60's Daysailer. My crew and I had taken her out for the first run.

The previous owner described that the rig should be all set up, and a little loose. I have sailed before, but took his word as I was new to this type of boat!

Needless to say, on rounding up for our first close haul run about 30 minutes in, POP! starboard main stay tore in half. The mast came down.

Repairing the boat: The rivets to reinstall the mast hing plate to the mast should be reasonably simple. I am going to replace the entire standing rigging. I do have a couple of questions though in the process.

First, my mast setup has a set of hing plates about 8" above the cuddy cabin. The lower portion of the mast is fixed securely into the keel frame, but has about a 1/4 inch play in every direction at the deck level. Is this much movement normal, will getting a tighter rig set up take this away?

Second, the stays and forestay are at their shortest points and it still seems there is to much slack in the system. Is there a mast jack at the base of these masts I cant see? Or do I need to buy all the stays shorter

Also, what is the normal wind range for these boats? I grew up racing a Hobie 16 all the way up into the 30's.

I bought this boat to get the family interested in sailing, and teach my kids.... hope I didn't go wrong, but I want something that moves along too.

Thanks for the help
Jason
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Postby K.C. Walker » Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:20 pm

Welcome aboard Jason!

I'm sorry to hear about your mast going down on the first sail. The same thing happened to me; though mine was a cracked turnbuckle bolt letting go. If a standard set of shrouds is too long I can think of a couple of solutions. One would be to move the tangs up on the mast and the other would be to put a block under the mast stub on the keelson. Standard sets of shrouds are available from D&R Marine, Intensity Sails, Dwyer mast company, Cape Cod Shipbuilding, or locally.

I would think it would be a good idea to carefully inspect all of your stainless connectors including your chain plate and stem head.

I would think if you're shrouds are too long that maybe your mast was cut down, though it's possible the previous owner rigged it with too long shrouds. This is probably not anything to be concerned about except for getting your rig tension set correctly. There are some really fast racing sailors that use somewhat shorter mast.

Setting up the rig loose is not what you want on these boats. I set my boat up with a snug rig in light conditions and add more tension for higher wind situations. A lot of the top sailors in the class use a very high rig tension in all situations. A good place to start is with the North Sails tuning guide, keeping in mind that you might have a different length mast and therefore a different rake measurement. http://www.northsailsod.com/class/daysa ... uning.html

Generally these boats are pretty sturdy and sail pretty nicely but they're not nearly as fast as a Hobie 16. I would say the normal wind ranges is up to 20 kn, above that would be in the extreme sailing category. With a well set up boat and the right crew and skipper, these boats will plane easily at about 12-15.

It would be really hard to find a better boat for teaching sailing to your kids, especially at the price point you can buy these boats. Also, I think the fun to cost ratio with these boats is really hard to beat.
KC Walker, DS 1 #7002
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Postby GreenLake » Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:34 am

Early 60's DS have a mastjack in their original configuration. On mine, it's a circular bronze nut on an approx 1" diameter threaded stock. 4-5 turns on the nut get my shrouds and forestay tensioned. (The original DS setup has not adjustments beyond a single mast jack).

The PO of my boat did have the standing rigging redone at a local swaging place (I know that, because of the receipts passed on to me). You should be able to find somebody who can run you up a set of shrouds and a forestay that fit your mast, especially if yours are adjustable and you have a sample on which you can base (modified) measurements to get a correct target length for mid-adjustment.

Something always goes wrong on the first sail, I was lucky that it was only the jib track that ripped out, but I was hitting marine stores for parts quicker than I had counted on :)

Good luck.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Postby K.C. Walker » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:02 am

GreenLake wrote: but I was hitting marine stores for parts quicker than I had counted on :)

Good luck.


Oh so true!
KC Walker, DS 1 #7002
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Postby jeadstx » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:06 am

Since your new to the Daysailer, D&R Marine http://www.drmarine.com/categories.asp?cat=60 has most of the parts for these boats. Since your stay broke in half, I guess you need new stays. The original stays are 3/32". D&R has those, but also has upgraded 1/8" stays. Rudy is a good source of info at D&R since he once worked for O'Day.

John
1976 Day Sailer II, #8075 - Completed the 2011, 2012, and 2013 Texas 200
1952 Beetle Boat Swan Catboat
Early Rhodes 19
1973 Mariner 2+2, #2607 - Completed 2014, 2015 and 2016 Texas 200
1969 Day Sailer I, #3229
Fleet 135; Canyon Lake, Texas
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