Daggerboard repair?

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patr547

New Member
I work at a summer camp and last year we got 10 brand new Sunfish..which was quite a change to the old boats that we had before.. Anyhow, a few of the daggerboards (the new-style plastic kind, or whatever they are made out of..all I know is that they aren't the durable wood that we used to have ;) ) got cracked or now have pieces missing from them as a result of various rocks in the water, and I have no clue how to repair them.

We never really had a problem with the wooden ones, because they simply wouldn't break so easily, but I feel like these plastic ones really just can't handle much. So, is there any way to repair the cracks/missing pieces, or would we be better off just buying new ones?
 
I keep a stick of two part epoxy putty in my tool kit. Just break off what you need, knead it together, and apply to small dings or broken pieces. File or sand off the excess. I dries quickly and hard as a rock. Cover with white spray paint.

Perhaps you can buy a few old wooden boards (or make them) for the beginner sailors to find those submerged rocks until they are taught to pull the daggerboard up. You can also set a small float away from shore to indicate when it is safe to drop the board.

Nice to hear of another camp teaching a new generation of Sunfish sailors.
 
I just joined the forum today and I also teach junior sailing on Sunfish. We have two of the boards you describe with the same problem. Looks like "JAWS" had been in our freshwater lake. I'm looking forward to learning much more about the care and maintenance of our eight Sunfish.
 
Another product to use is Marine-Tex available from marine shops, West Marine, etc. It's a 2-part product, apply where needed, put kitchen plastic wrap over the repair area and shape it close, leave it on to set up, then final sand. When it's close to set up you can do a little shaping with a rag wet with acetone if you like (be careful, you're basically dissolving the non-hardened material). Acetone cleans up your hands. Whatever you mix it in will be a throw away. Great thing is it's white and the color blends right in, no painting necessary.

For camp use, unless you can mark off the areas with rocks/stumps, acquire a chart of the lake bottom and have the kids learn where to stay away from and to pull up their daggerboards before they're too close to shore, you may want to see if you can find people who will sell you their old wooden boards (or perhaps you could set up some kind of trade). While the performance with the new board is better, for camp use I'm not sure it's worth the trade off.

Also, on the daggerboard trunks, I recomment glueing in a strip of rubber along the trailing edge of the trunk (from just below the deck to the bottom of the trunk), so when the daggerboard hits against it in a sudden stop there's a little give and perhaps the daggerboard trunk won't crack right away and cause leaks.

See also the illustration at

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oHVYRn...x49fL8O2CC/Safety Equipment/Bungee Cord 1.jpg

When the bungee is tight enough it will hold the daggerboard up in place for launching and recovering the boat near shore. You will need to establish a Yahoo account (free and easy) to access it, but there is a TON of information at that site.

Good luck.
 
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