DRAGONFLY Trimarans User Forum

Searching for a DF 800 S.W. in north Britanny ( ST Malo) , I finally have bought last month a MK2 fixed wings , Nr 88 , 1987's. in south Britanny (Port la Foret).
The boat has been sailing for a long time on Bodensee Germany and was in France since 2004.
The boat is dismanteled on its road trailer ,and I do need any inquirements to fit it again in a perfect tune.
For example : it has fixing points for shrouds on the amas , but has only backstays.
I have been searching for photographs on DF forum ," storeseglare sails" site , "magic hempel"in Google, etc , etc....but I do not find detailed pictures.
Any help , pictures , text , will be christmas gifts for me.
Merci , bonne année 2009 , kenavo and have nice sailing trips in next year.
Sincerelly Yours J.louis jeanlouis.didailler@free.fr

Jean Louis

I too have recently purchased a Dragonfly 800 Mk2 with the fixed beams.
You should have the fixed shrouds which are two parts. The top part is used when putting up the mast.
I will send you photos of me putting my boat Vamos together recently. It was the first time we had done it and took 5 hours but apparently it can be done in two with experience.
I also have instructions for putting the boat together with a diagram which the previous owner had given me. If you want better quality photos I will can give send them.
You will not find much help on this site as it is very quiet. I am still trying to find information on the tensions for the standing rigging and also sail tuning tips.

Regards
Ken

Hi Ken and Jean Louis,

I have also had difficulty finding any info about the fixed aka boats. Even members who have owned the fixed models don't respond to some questions I even wrote to Quoring who claimed not to have any info on the boats anymore.

I tried to raise my mast manually but gave up and resorted to a crane as the procedure seemed dangerous.

We should try to share all information we can find. Mine is a Canadian built boat so it is a bit different from the European types. Someone out there must have an owners manual with diagrams.

Happy New Year, Davis

Davis

I put up my mast manually and it was actually quite straight forward, if not a bit scary!. I will send you a diagram and also instructions which are quite good that were given to me by a previous owner. I can also send photos of the raising of the mast if you wish. I have been sailing Vamos for a couple of months now in south West Australian waters and it is terrific. We just had a few days on it in beautiful simmer weather at Quindalup which is idylic for sailing, swimming, diving and fishing.

I am still interested in getting information on what tensions to use on the water stays, shrouds and forstay. There is some info on the old forum but it quotes numbers using a Loos gauge which I don't have.

Happy sailing.

Regards
Ken

dragonfly88 wrote:Hi Ken and Jean Louis,

I have also had difficulty finding any info about the fixed aka boats. Even members who have owned the fixed models don't respond to some questions I even wrote to Quoring who claimed not to have any info on the boats anymore.

I tried to raise my mast manually but gave up and resorted to a crane as the procedure seemed dangerous.

We should try to share all information we can find. Mine is a Canadian built boat so it is a bit different from the European types. Someone out there must have an owners manual with diagrams.

Happy New Year, Davis

Hi Ken,

I'm not much help on the water stay tension. I tightened my turnbuckles hand tight and nothing moves but I wasn't out in really heavy weather yet either. I was in contact with with another 25 owner of 18 years and he seemed to indicate that the same approach. He didn't mention using a tension gauge in any case. I have shrouds also hand tight and then follow Ted's recommendations for tensioning the back stays or split stays in the case if my boat.
These are not satisfactory answer even to me (I like to know exact numbers whenever I can) but everything seemed OK during my first season out.

Seeing the pictures and diagrams for mast raising would be great. I have the boat stored harbor side now so the rig will stay up all winter but the skill would be a useful one to have.

Looks like lovely sailing grounds there. I sailed out of Marblehead last year.

Thanks, Davis

drcei73@yahoo.com [/i]

If you would like to send the pictures to me I will put them in the Forum for all to see.

Thank you Ken for sending the photo, diagram and instructions for raising the mast of a DF800 MkII and a big thank you to the previous owner of Ken's DF who made these.

Photo of raising the mast: Klick here

Diagram for raising the mast: Klick here

Instructions for raising the mast (in pdf format): Klick here