can anyone share experiences with long daggerboards on the C2? i'm sailing the 2010 model with normal boards. i hear very good stories of infusion sailors who have upgraded their 2009 and 2010 cats with long boards. is it worth the investment?

I have only sailed with the long boards for four days at the NAs in Hyannis. They do work effectively to power up the boat in medium conditions but they are difficult to manage in heavy air. I need a system to keep them up while going upwind (windward board keeps sliding down) and get them up higher than the uphaul will allow while going downwind. I have worked out some systems but none that work as well as I would like.

i have the same issue with boards sliding down when not under pressure. darren (bundock) advices me to stick some tape under the carpets to obtain the right level of friction to keep the boards in place while maintaining easy sliding of the boards. have not tried it yet. will do it soon.

I have used the velcro with the soft on one side and the grip on the other cut into strips and stuck on the upper carpet.

After 4 days in Hyannis, all I can say is the board didn't slow us down, and we felt that they had advantages to pointing upwind in lighter air, and made it easier to fly a hull downwind. Again, speculation due to only a short amount of time with them, and a lot of it spent in lumpy and/or breezy conditions.

As for holding them up, you guys should have asked around at Hyannis, we solved this issue (mostly because the boards are heavier then the shorter ones) via a bit of non skid tape just above where the strap is connected and/or (we did both) the addition of "fuzzy side of velcro" added to the carpet in the middle of the trunk on the inboard side. I'm sure other remedies will be found as well.

Only real issue we found is you have to make sure the trailing back bottom edge of your dagger board trunk is "clean". Take a small square file and make sure that that no gelcoat / gunk is down there. It should look like a nice square space with no imperfections. We had a bit of gelcoat in there and it started to chip the trailing edge (very very minor).

Look forward to hearing other people's experience with them, but we were pleasantly surprised that we didn't need to pull them up as much as we thought we would have to, and that they felt like they made driving upwind a bit easier to get into "pinch mode" when needed in the light stuff.

My 4 cents,
Can 12

Chris,
Thanks for the tip on the dagger board wells. I've been chipping my short boards for a long time and never had the presence of mind to check that....

Cheers!

For the time being, the C2 is factory-supplied with short boards, correct? Where do you get the longer boards from, are they available from AHPC?

Bok: I'm Patrick, Chris's crew. I'll give credit where due, that tip comes from Robbie D and AHPC.

Baltic: As far as I know the new boats will be coming with the long boards standard. Check with funinthesunweb (AT) gmail (DOT) com (Jill Nickerson) about availability of long boards now, she had a bunch available at the NAs for purchase, not sure if all of them went.

What is the length of the longer boards?

1800mm. The old was 1600mm I think.

good board comparison by Greg G. at the end of latest F18 TC meeting minutes

I've put ti light blocks on my shrouds (epoxy and seizing line around tail of block attachment line) and use an up-haul line with cleat on deck. Works well to hold them up, but so far, there is too much friction to lift them under load. Work in progress. Don't want them too high or the lifting line will attack you when coming in from trapeeze.

Should: Total Board Length - Trunk Length = Projection Below Hull Amount?
Is it the equation, data, or arithmetic that is off?

In a addition to the price increase, the longer boards create a potential hazard by the back side of the raised boards which is more common/prominent with a longer dagger.

BTW, former C2 boards are finding their way onto Vipers.

Are the trailing edges of the boards rounded on that portion that (when fully down) would be sitting in the daggarboard case? That might help reduce lacerations when boards are partially raised... might increase the strength a bit, too, although I would suspect the highest load point would be that first mm or two past the bottom of the daggarboard well.