New Addition to the FLEET

[bda_n_tampa]

Hey all,
First time Oday owner :dance: Bought this beautiful 1979 23' last week. Im planning on doing alot of restoration in the next couple months and will probably have all sorts of weird and wonderful questions to throw at you guys! Ill keep my profile updated with my progress.

Any other 23' owners in Tampa area?

 

[dparilla]

Welcome aboard, and welcome to the O'day family. Lots of knowledge available here between the archives and live discussion. I would say the help, commiseration and camraderie of this site has been a lifesaver throughout my maintenance adventures.

 

[bda_n_tampa]

Thanks Dan,
the first project i need to do is jump in and give the bottom a little scrape down so that it makes it a little bit easier to motor her over to the local marina and on to the trailer. I see you have a 35 but could you point me to a post or video of how to step a 23 mast and standing rigging. Ive rigged boats before but not a boat of this size. Thanks

 

[Joe11688]

She sure is a beautiful boat. Welcome to the forum!
I see a lot of great possibilities and modifications that can be done.

As far as stepping the mast goes, I helped in stepping masts on most sloops like Tanzers, Bristols and O'Day 25s including my O'Day 222 which I trailered for eight years straight. I've never stepped the mast on an O'Day 23 but I don't think it would be any different than stepping the mast on my 222 but I could be wrong about that.

I would step the mast from aft on this boat because of the roller furler. The Gennie should be removed from the furler to lighten up everything.

The most important and crucial part of the mast stepping is to have some sort of a mast crutch set up on the stern to hold the mast just high enough off the closed companionway slider so that it will clear it after the mast is let down. You could make up a crutch and attach it to your stern pulpit. A friend of mine put a roller in his crutch so that he could roll the mast fore and aft. I did the same thing on mine.

You could use almost anything to support the mast for now like a short step ladder tied to your stern rail or you could take two 2X4s and bolt them together to resemble a giant scissors, adjust the height, and rope it to the stern rail.

On my boat, I'm able to loosen the backstay enough to disconnect my forestay which has a CDI Roller Furler. I use a Gin Pole to raise and lower my mast, but you can get three people to help you in lowering the mast.

I would have one person hold the fuler right in line with the mast as it come down. Two others can walk the mast down till it's in the mast crutch.

The wind needs to be coming from aft and the boat needs to be completely level from side to side when you do this.

Looking at the pics you've provided, the companionway hatch slider looks like it has tinted plastic. This can present a problem because you're not going to be able to stand on it when you let the mast down. So I guess you're going to have to be careful. I would think about making a mast raising/lowering Gin Pole for this boat and a mast crutch for the stern rail.

 

[emergpa1]

welcome!

I visited your profile page but did not find any info on your experience. Thats ok, but it is helpful to know if you have rebuilt any boats, sailed a lot, what was your last boat. that keeps us from giving you info you might already know, using terms that you might not recognize, etc.

You should visit trinka's profile page and view his modifications album for some great information.

Get ready to run into all kinds of projects that need to be done on your boat. What you have to do is lump them into categories such as
1. Must do before i can safely sail the boat
2. Need to do quickly before more damage is done (the stitch in time principle)
3. Stuff to make it more fun /prettier/comfortable/faster
4. Pie in the sky someday stuff if i get money and time and live long enuff and have all my other stuff done.
As an example, the scraping the bottom, falls into the third category, but doing a bottom paint job probably gets into the second. Making sure the motor runs, the mast is secure, or you don't get electrocuted plugging into shore power gets into the first category.

btw, I am about ready to unwrap a mast raising system that came while i was down in Destin this week. I let you know what i think as time goes by.

Congratulations on your acquisition of a fine little yacht! Say goodbye to all your loose change!

Keith