Oday Daysailer to restore
Years ago I had a small sailboat, an Oday Daysailer. I bought it used in 2000 and kept it at our North Carolina lake house. The idea was to get my boys interested in sailing. Never happened. Once they had the speed of a Sea Doo, also at the lake house, they never looked back.
Anyway, we brought the Daysailer with us when we traded the lake house for our new waterfront house in Annapolis. It resided on a lift and got very little use. I was always to busy with work or house projects to sail it and the boys were still into power boat speed.
Somewhere around 2010, I gave the Daysailer and trailer to my brother Patrick. He had a North Carolina canal front house he shared with my sister and brother in law, both sailors. Best I can tell, it never got used.
My sister in law, Kate, wrote me an email a month or so ago about the Daysailer. It had been stored outside at one of their Norfolk rental properties, for years. I decided to repossess it and make it a restoration project.
Another brother, Jim, went over and assessed the boat and trailer. He managed to get it out of the weeds, pumped up the dry rotted tires and moved it over to his house. On Friday, my wife and I drove down to Norfolk to get it. I brought two new tires and a new light wiring kit, knowing for sure the trailer also needed rehab.
At Jim's house and with Jim's help we changed the tires and installed the light kit. The wheel bearings needed attention especially one of them, which made some rumbling noise when it turned. Long ago my dad had trained me on trailer axles and wheel bearing repacking. I think we did this on the old Apache camper trailer they owned.
Anyway those skills and that experience came in handy. We cleaned out the one noisy bearing and it clearly needed it. Brother Jim found an ancient grease gun in his garage and it was perfect for adding grease and repacking the bearings.
The boat made the trip home to Annapolis on Saturday with no problems!
Thanks dad!