New 38 DE Owner looking for information General Forum Forums

So there are 8 or 9 of us that I think monitor the boards fairly regularly. We have several hundred members which don't seem to follow the forums on a regular basis but will drop in to ask a question once in a while and might answer questions for a while if they see them. Lately we have one or two active topics a week with just a few posts. You can normally expect to get a response to a question in a day or two at the longest. Wether it is the response you wanted? well that is another thing 🙂 Don't get discouraged though. This website and forum hold topics and posts and pages that go back a decade and on top of that that have another decade or more of topics and posts and pages from two community websites that existed before I built this one. This site holds 20+ years of accumulated factory and owner knowledge on all the Downeaster boats. When your looking for something search in the forums here but also you need to go back to the main website http://www.downeasteryachts.com and search through the posts and pages there. There are probably close to a thousand posts and pages of information there also. Sometimes it takes to time and digging to find stuff just due to how much there is. If you post a question here and I have the time or remember something pertinent I will post a link to the appropriate page for you but sometimes it I won't know or remember or might not have time to.

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there are a lot of posts about those from people wanting to replace missing ones to people wanting repair or replace existing ones. There is no good answer other than your individual deep pockets to hire someone to make some for you or your innate artistic talent and drive to make your own at the end of the day. At least that is my takeaway on the subject after following several conversations people have had on the topic. To my knowledge there is no DE  graveyard and I have only heard of one DE being cut up and scrapped after a hurricane. Seems to me that was after Katrina I think down in Louisiana maybe? So dead DE's are uncommon. They tend to get in bad shape and be bought for a steal and then refurbished and head back out rather than go to the breakers in my opinion. They are such tough and great designs that people really go out of their way to get them. As to the size of the roller furling.. something sized for a 30ft boat would probably be about right for the stay sail. About one step below what you would use on the main jib. 🙂 my recommendation is just based on what feels right to me and not on any actual numbers though.

About the stay sail stay length.

You can pull it down and measure what you have with the mast up no issues. We replaced most of our standing rigging a few years ago by ourselves at the dock but removing one stay at the time and replacing it. Took a couple days to pull, measure and replace each stay. The factory specs for it are at this link http://downeasteryachts.com/th.....-all-boats at the bottom of the page. Which ever roller you get though will have a different length based on the furling unit and how you position it. You will notice that the stay sail stay is not one length of wire from deck to mast but has a section at deck level that then terminates at boom level in a fitting before turning into the stay wire going to mast. I don't think it is rocket science but if your having issues visualizing what you want to do or how to do it you might want to get a rigger that is reputable to take a look and maybe design your conversion. I would rather do it myself than trust just any boat yard or marine mechanic guy to do it though. Most of them are idiots that have no idea what they are doing when it comes to standing rigging that isn't a straight drop in replacement and sometimes even then. Before doing it you need to know if your keeping a boom, going boomless etc.. as that will affect the design.

As far as I am aware there has never been any wood drim on the exterior of a stock DE. All wood is minimal and limited to these items (hatches, handrails, caprail and bowsprit).

hmm... I've been think on this and I think I am wrong. I think I did remove and fill holes for trim there when I first got valkyr. Yep I definitely did.. Remember using one of those self mixing caulk gun tubes of epoxy from west marine to fill the holes with when I did it.. wow memory is going. I wouldn't put it back though. just more annual maintenance 🙂 Also if your don't use teak or IPE I wouldn't bother. your lifespan is less than 1/10th as long.