klandingham
New Member
Hello, I am a complete newbie, and I could use some opinions.
I just bought a used boat, which I was told was a Sunfish, but I'm beginning to get a little skeptical because what I have doesn't seem to visually match anything I've seen here.
I'll post pictures soon, but let me describe the boat: white bottom, pale green deck. The bow handle looks like a simple piece of square metal stock screwed in at its ends into a recess in the deck. The coaming is molded into the deck. There is no block (nor hardware to attach one) near the mast step, nor is there any cleat aft of it. There is only a very small cleat to the right of the mast step. This cleat seems tiny given the diameter of the halyard. The cockpit is quite a bit longer than anything I've seen in pictures here. There is no drain at all in the cockpit. On either side of the cockpit, the deck has a crisscross foot grip pattern molded into it, which seems really weird to me in that I haven't seen anything like that on any Sunfish picture I have found so far.
The first time I stepped the mast into the boat, the mast didn't seem to go very deep into the hull, and I noticed that it had some circular wear marks a few inches above deck level (as if it was used in a different boat at some point in the past). I suppose those marks could have been made by the gooseneck.
I can't find a serial number anywhere on the boat. It has an old style rudder bracket with a simple bolt-wingnut arrangement. The rudder matches a picture of an "old style" rudder I've found here (no pivot at all and does not run very deep in the water.) The seller showed me that he had installed a little rubber drain plug in the lower left of the stern for "drainage". I haven't weighed it yet (don't know what to compare it to) but the boat seems awfully heavy for a Sunfish.
When I picked the boat up it appeared to have been sitting in the seller's back yard for quite some time. I strapped it deck-down to my roof racks to bring it home. That was about an hour drive and I didn't notice anything coming from the boat.
After sailing it for a few hours on a small lake and returning it to my roof rack, I noticed water dribbling out (I think from the mast step hole) whenever I would turn or brake.
I've only ever sailed once before (rented a Sunfish on a lake during vacation - that's when I got hooked), so this is probably not a fair judgement, but this boat doesn't feel as light and lively as the rental did (too heavy? waterlogged?)
I'm wondering if:
I just bought a used boat, which I was told was a Sunfish, but I'm beginning to get a little skeptical because what I have doesn't seem to visually match anything I've seen here.
I'll post pictures soon, but let me describe the boat: white bottom, pale green deck. The bow handle looks like a simple piece of square metal stock screwed in at its ends into a recess in the deck. The coaming is molded into the deck. There is no block (nor hardware to attach one) near the mast step, nor is there any cleat aft of it. There is only a very small cleat to the right of the mast step. This cleat seems tiny given the diameter of the halyard. The cockpit is quite a bit longer than anything I've seen in pictures here. There is no drain at all in the cockpit. On either side of the cockpit, the deck has a crisscross foot grip pattern molded into it, which seems really weird to me in that I haven't seen anything like that on any Sunfish picture I have found so far.
The first time I stepped the mast into the boat, the mast didn't seem to go very deep into the hull, and I noticed that it had some circular wear marks a few inches above deck level (as if it was used in a different boat at some point in the past). I suppose those marks could have been made by the gooseneck.
I can't find a serial number anywhere on the boat. It has an old style rudder bracket with a simple bolt-wingnut arrangement. The rudder matches a picture of an "old style" rudder I've found here (no pivot at all and does not run very deep in the water.) The seller showed me that he had installed a little rubber drain plug in the lower left of the stern for "drainage". I haven't weighed it yet (don't know what to compare it to) but the boat seems awfully heavy for a Sunfish.
When I picked the boat up it appeared to have been sitting in the seller's back yard for quite some time. I strapped it deck-down to my roof racks to bring it home. That was about an hour drive and I didn't notice anything coming from the boat.
After sailing it for a few hours on a small lake and returning it to my roof rack, I noticed water dribbling out (I think from the mast step hole) whenever I would turn or brake.
I've only ever sailed once before (rented a Sunfish on a lake during vacation - that's when I got hooked), so this is probably not a fair judgement, but this boat doesn't feel as light and lively as the rental did (too heavy? waterlogged?)
I'm wondering if:
- This is really a Sunfish or some kind of copy.
- If I have a serious leak/waterlogged boat.
- If I should install fore and aft inspection ports (to begin drying out the inside of the hull) and a drain on one side of the beam.