Daggerboard trunk padding

Sailkb

Member
I was reading some old sailing articles the other day on Sunfish sailing and ran across a comment advising to pad the fore and aft ends of the daggerboard trunk. Is the reason to better secure the daggerboard? To protect the trunk? If you have done this I'd be interested to know how essential you feel it is. I hate to glue in some carpet only to find out I really don't like it and have to wrestle with tearing them out.
 
I usually put in padding, but not 'carpet' -- and not all the way down. Especially if you are using a new-style white expensive daggerboard, and doubly-especially when you are using one on an old boat (next time you see someone with an old boat and new daggerboard, have a look and see if they've scraped the coating off the edge of the board with use). Similarly but less obviously, you often see similar scraping on the edges of wooden boards.

What works well is this:
  • With the board in, check to see how much fore-and-aft play you have -- is there room for padding?
  • With the board out, with your finger, check to see how much indentation you have - if any - about an inch down into the trunk, and an inch up from the hill. On most new boats the trunk edges are flush - on older boats there's an indentation with maybe a sharp edge.
  • Cut a couple or a few pieces of tough webbing into sections maybe three-fourths of an inch wide and an inch-and-a-half or two inches long. The OEM hiking sraps on Pearson-built Sunfish were perfect (cut in 3/4 inch slices across). A piece of heavy tie-down webbing might work, also. Nothing too thin, though, and not carpet-thick either. If your board trunk has an (older-type) indentation, you'll want a couple of extra pieces of webbing and the webbing should be about thick enough so that if it's set down in, it inside ends of the trunk are about flush with the deck and hull lips where they attach.
  • Using 3M 5200 or 4200 liberally on one side of the webbing, glue webbing pieces in near the top and bottom of the trunk -- especially the in the lower rear of the trunk (and upper front and maybe upper rear) where the board gets the most wear against the edge.
  • If your trunk has that indentation an inch inside (see above), you may want to install two pieces of webbing - one recessed to build up the inside edge so it's flush for a couple of inches, just as a base - and then piece over that base piece and the edge lip.
Not sure if that's clear at all, but the key is to not overdo it and just use a couple of narrow heavy webbing tabs sets in with 5200 or whatever, keeping an eye for getting the placement on the lip flush, especially if the trunk lip is uneven inside. Your board will thank you.
 
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Thanks for the detailed response. It seems odd that I do have an indentation just on one side of the slot but not on the other. I will give this a try.
 
Many of us use stick on velcro. You can get 3/4" wide strips at a hardware store and cut a length for front and back of the trunk. Just use the soft side of the velcro, and then just lay it in and use some sort for dowel to press it into place. I would recommend to not use 4200 or 5200 to glue anything in the daggerboard trunk. That is overkill, and if whatever material you use does not fit right, it will be impossible to get out of the trunk.

Andy
 
Many of us use stick on velcro. You can get 3/4" wide strips at a hardware store and cut a length for front and back of the trunk. Just use the soft side of the velcro, and then just lay it in and use some sort for dowel to press it into place. I would recommend to not use 4200 or 5200 to glue anything in the daggerboard trunk. That is overkill, and if whatever material you use does not fit right, it will be impossible to get out of the trunk.

Andy


Yes, that's right -- good point -- but I'm guessing most of you folks are sailing SLI-or-newer boats, where the trunks tend to be relatively flush with the deck and hull. This boat looked older.

Where there's that sharp edge in the trunk, as in many or most older boats, the velcro doesn't seem to hold up on the edge (unless we first get that trunk edge flush). At least that's what I've found. But you are right, velcro tabs are the way to on the newer boats without that 'edge' problem.
 

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