Not quite a year ago, in the midst of the covid outbreak, I bought a 1969 DSI, #4184. Naturally, and being a first-time boat owner, I was excited to get it in the water, so I did a couple of quick repairs, cleaned up the floor boards and put her in a slip on the Potomac (I live in Washington, DC). From the PO, I knew the center-board square hole had rounded off and the center board wouldn't go up and down. But the seal also leaked and soon there was water in the boat. The water level stopped rising when it got about 3 inches deep, so I just wet-vacuumed it out each trip to the marina and tried to sail as much as possible. I should mention that my goals here are pretty straightforward: sail as much as my schedule allows to build up skills and experience. I don't mind working on the boat but I'm not a perfectionist and I'm not looking for a pristine restoration. I'll most likely be single-handling about 2/3rds of the time, luring out the wife and friends the rest of the time.
Now coming into my second season, I want to be a little more disciplined about the repairs I need to take, both for safety and seaworthiness, but also to prevent additional damage from occurring. So, I have a bunch of questions about both what I need to do and the sequence I need to do them. Again, the goal is to have the boat work well, so I can learn how to handle her in different conditions and become a proficient sailor and to be safe. Making the boat better for the next owner is probably a good thing too.
She's in a dry slip now and yesterday a couple of friends and I careened her and I was able to get the centerboard out. So here's my first question:
1) I know I need to square up the centerboard hole, but in all honesty it doesn't look that round. Should I both square up the hole *and* buy a new handle? (A handle isn't cheap -- about $150 from D & R marine.)
The starboard side is worse, but there is a metal band within the hole that is keeping the shape, more or less. Here are both sides:
The handle actually looks like it is the culprit, with metal wear that looks like things have been rounded off. Here's a close up:
I'm comfortable with learning some fiberglass repair to put the centerboard into good shape, so I'll probably do that, as well.
My other question is about how much water can actually be coming in through a leaky seal on the CB. This is what I had to wet-dry vacuum out on my weekly trips to the slip:
There were some flaky bits on the floor of the boat, most of which I used gelcoat to repair before putting her in the slip last summer. But it's possible that there are more loose spots.
But does this amount of water look like what a leaky cb seal might produce? It also struck me as odd that it would fill to a point and then stop. But my knowledge of fluid dynamics is pretty limited so maybe once the hole gets at water level the boats buoyancy stops the drip-drip.
I have lots of other questions about replacing the jib cleats (the old tufnol ones don't hold the jib sheet) and what I need to do to the hull before I put her back into the slip for summer, but I will stop here for now. Thanks for any advice.