Editor’s Log

If the boat’s well-cared-for condition wasn’t selling point enough, the lights on the trailer worked.

Earlier this summer, with the world turned all topsy-turvy, our Sabre 34 on the hard, and the future looking about as clear as a brackish creek after a soaking rain, we did the only thing that seemed sensible at the time: We bought another sailboat.

It’s a beaut—a 1965 O’day Daysailer I, with a dark blue hull, white deck and varnished floorboards that admittedly could benefit from some TLC eventually. And if the boat’s well-cared-for condition wasn’t selling point enough, the lights on the trailer worked.

I’ve never had a trailer with lights. An omen? Perhaps.

We’d been looking for a while for a small, trailerable fiberglass sailboat, one that’s easy to maintain and could be launched on a whim on a sunny winter’s day. (OK, I’d been looking for a while; daughter No.1 seemed intrigued, and my wife appeared tolerant.)

The search began with an open mind, and this past spring, I found there was no lack of listings on the usual online websites for dreamers. There were scads of Rhodes 19s (a little too big), plenty of Lasers (too wet), a few Victoria 18s (the keel was a killer) and several Snarks (a Snark?). But as the safari slogged on and I kept seeing ads for Daysailers, I became more and more intrigued, especially by the early ones. Designed by British planing-dinghy guru Uffa Fox, three different models were built by George O’day in Fall River, Massachusetts, between 1957 and 1990. Of the three, the DSI and DSII qualify for one-design regattas.

And while my immediate plans don’t involve racing, you never know. With over 10,000 Daysailers launched (several other builders licensed the design over the years, and they’re still available from Cape Cod Shipbuilding in Wareham, Massachusetts) and an active class association, including a fleet just 6 miles up the road, getting my butt kicked by skippers who actually know what they’re doing might be entertaining at some point.

For now, I’ll be content to just go out for lazy sails to nowhere.

Ironically, after weeks of searching, it was the boat that found us one Saturday in June while I waited to take the dog for a walk. By happenstance, I typed “sailboat” into the Craigslist search engine, and the very first picture to pop up was a just-listed Daysailer I for half the price of a much newer one that I’d made an appointment to see the next day. Presto! My wife and I were out the door with cash in hand.

At the boat, we were greeted by the seller, who was a friend of the family that had bought it new. The owner had been a Raytheon rocket scientist, and he’d left the Daysailer to his son, a machinist, who’d recently passed on as well. The seller, who knew nothing about boats, led us into the empty house where there were several boxes and bags filled with spare jam cleats, horns, life jackets, lengths of line, an unopened first-aid kit, stick-on running lights—you name it—along with the original bill of sale, a wiring diagram for the trailer, notes on work done on the boat over the years, and several issues of the owners association’s Day Sailer journal, mostly from the ’60 and ’70s, bundled up neatly with white sail twine. The original three-piece telescoping whisker pole was even there and in working order.

How fast can you say “Sold!”?

Back home, the girls pulled out the power washer and scrubbed away several years of dust. From the parts boxes, I found a bag full of shiny new bronze hanks and began lashing them onto the jib. We discovered that we had a little ant problem around the centerboard trunk but figured they’d fend for themselves once the boat was in the water. I found a long screwdriver and began digging out the seeds and twigs some varmint had stored in the base of the mast.

On a hot Friday morning the following week, I crawled under the trailer and sanded the bottom. Then my daughter crawled under to paint. She waxed the hull while I ran off to find a ¼-inch bronze drain plug and double braid for a topping lift. That afternoon, just ahead of a line of incoming thunderstorms, we headed to the wharf and scrounged up a couple of passersby to help step the mast. The boat came without turnbuckles, and the stays seemed loose until I found an original Daysailer manual online that explained how to set up the rigging. Turns out the mast sits on a large nut that, when turned, tensions all three stays at the same time. Brilliant.

Between weather and work, it was a few evenings later before my wife and I took the first sail. But, boy. As we left the mooring in maybe 10 knots of breeze, the sails filled, the boat heeled just enough, and off we went. Back on the water again. Sailing.