J
John S
I read here about someone who had asked Joel S at IdaSailor about the availability of a daggerboard for a D model, and the product was not available. Well, today I asked Joel about it and this is what he said, "it isn't worth it to me". Here's why:The price of the daggerboard made of HDPE (in the past) just did not justify the cost to a potential customer. The daggerboard requires a cut from a large board of HDPE that can only make three dboards with a lot of excess left over, that is not useful for any other rudder or dboard. Also, the HDPE dboards weren't exactly flying out of the shop, and once one dboard was cut out of a sheet of HDPE, the rest of the sheet could sit for a while on the shelf until the next order, which took up space and didn't pay for itself while waiting for the next order.A new dboard can be ordered from Macgregor for a lot less money, if all differences between the two types of dboards is ignored. I belive a dboard from Mac costs $300 and one from IdaSailor will now cost $500, reflecting Joel's reluctance to even make any in the future. Better take care of the one you've got!As far as the fact that most Mac owners are not about to pay $500 for a new daggerboard, well I believe that most owners that face replacement will buy a factory model. I happen to have one of the IdaSailor dboards with 50 extra pounds of lead in the very bottom. Guess it is worth more than I paid for it, when IdaSailor used to sell them. I believe that the rudder and the dboard are the two most effective mods to these boats, as far as speed and pointing ability goes...John S Boise