Discovery 20

[KONeill]

I'm thinking about a Discovery 20, but I can't find much online about setup/tear down times. Woods says his similar swing-up system on the Strike trimarans is fifteen minutes from trailer to the water or back, which would be great. Is the D20 in a similar range? I'm probably going to leave the mast up, so the question is really how long to drop the amas and bolt it all up. Anyone with real world experience?

And as long as I'm here, anyone put a bowsprit and downwind sail on a D20? Any advice or comments about that?

Thanks!

 

[Laurent]

Bump...

Hi guys, a friend and I are looking into buying a Discorvery 20 designed by Chris White. It is foldable trimaran (amas are going UP, not below the main hull) but folding is not on the water. Have any of you had some experience with this boat, especially the folding and unfolding process? Is it a true PITA or a breeze?

Any first hand information is well appreciated.

 

[MoMP]

Mine lived the summers on a mooring so I set up and broke down once each a year.  Reality, it is not a trailer sailor.  I tried the amas up trailering position once.  It was at best and to be polite, a fucking horror show.  A realistic time with at least one other friend is 4 hours soup to nuts.  Can it be done quicker, sure but as I said, one time in and one time out, so full breakdown or set up.

The gentleman who bought it from me engineered the trailer to allow the boat to be assembled by one person.  I don't remember the details but remembering how clever I thought it was.

If you sail it on and off a mooring, it is a very easy and enjoyable boat to own.

It had an asymmetrical chute which was tacked to the bow.  It worked well.  I didn't get around to adding a sprit but that would have been ideal.  

 

[Laurent]

MoMP, thanks for the input.

Well... we bought it, so now we have to make it work...

We do NOT intend to drive down the road with the amas up in the air. We actually drove the boat from Florida to Texas fully dismantled; that was fine. We intend to keep the boat on the parking lot at the sail club, with the amas up, and find a way to lower them down on the trailer before we back it to the ramp... The previous owner had some set up to raise the mast with some "temporary lower shrouds" that we may try to use to keep the mas up, even with the amas folded up. If we add a temporary backstay, we should be able to avoid the rasing-the-mast/lowering-the-mast every time we go sailing, that would be much longer than "only" lowering the amas. We intend to have a large plank inserted in the daggerboard trunk, with purchases on both sides and a strap around each ama to lower and raise the amas. We shall see...

We have no downwind sail for now. A sprit is down the "to do" list.

 

[MultiThom]

I don't think I'd rely totally on temporary shrouds to keep the mast up when you walk away.  But other boats have had similar needs.  One way is to haul the real shrouds back with the mainsheet so you have the mast centered and supported fore-aft and athwartships with something more substantial than temporaries...but leave the temps attached.

 

[sail(plane)]

MoMP, thanks for the input.

Well... we bought it, so now we have to make it work...

We do NOT intend to drive down the road with the amas up in the air. We actually drove the boat from Florida to Texas fully dismantled; that was fine. We intend to keep the boat on the parking lot at the sail club, with the amas up, and find a way to lower them down on the trailer before we back it to the ramp... The previous owner had some set up to raise the mast with some "temporary lower shrouds" that we may try to use to keep the mas up, even with the amas folded up. If we add a temporary backstay, we should be able to avoid the rasing-the-mast/lowering-the-mast every time we go sailing, that would be much longer than "only" lowering the amas. We intend to have a large plank inserted in the daggerboard trunk, with purchases on both sides and a strap around each ama to lower and raise the amas. We shall see...

We have no downwind sail for now. A sprit is down the "to do" list.

post some pics please

 

[MoMP]

MoMP, thanks for the input.

Well... we bought it, so now we have to make it work...

We do NOT intend to drive down the road with the amas up in the air. We actually drove the boat from Florida to Texas fully dismantled; that was fine. We intend to keep the boat on the parking lot at the sail club, with the amas up, and find a way to lower them down on the trailer before we back it to the ramp... The previous owner had some set up to raise the mast with some "temporary lower shrouds" that we may try to use to keep the mas up, even with the amas folded up. If we add a temporary backstay, we should be able to avoid the rasing-the-mast/lowering-the-mast every time we go sailing, that would be much longer than "only" lowering the amas. We intend to have a large plank inserted in the daggerboard trunk, with purchases on both sides and a strap around each ama to lower and raise the amas. We shall see...

We have no downwind sail for now. A sprit is down the "to do" list.

Congrats on the purchase.  You WILL have fun, albeit, wet fun.  My T-Gull23 used lower shrouds for mast raising while the boat was still folded.  It work, but I always felt a bit rushed to get the amas folded out and main shrouds loaded.  Probably unjustified.

 

[captainzman]

This is Z, the guy you spoke to initially about the discovery 20.  I'm so glad you bought the boat from Roy--you have a great daysailer for not a lot of money.  I have to agree that removing the amas and carrying them flat on their beam ends is the only way to go any distance and that sounds like what you did.  The spray skirts forward keep her a little drier but the person who said "wet fun" is certainly correct. Have fun!

 

[KONeill]

We finally got a nice day on a weekend for Adventures In Folding:





Works fine. Easy to line the bolts up once it's unfolded. In the end we trimmed the fairing a tiny bit on the back beams and folded it a bit further:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_UbamJ-vKKpw2zetnf8O1canDIHK6fcy

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_tZJkiO3sQtJwEiJSzMVVHsJ5gzYrCAC

Looking forward to sailing, if the rain ever stops.

 

[KONeill]

Update: We went sailing!

We've been doing some repairs, and the boat is still at my house an hour from the water at least in part because there's a couple of years (!!) waiting list for a parking spot at the club. But we've been sailing a few times and had some fun.

Setup time is about an hour if you're not in a hurry and things aren't well sorted out yet. I took a video of the unfolding bit:

https://youtu.be/1zswxt0w9SA

Probably not super interesting unless you're a D20 owner also. We added some bars on the inboard ends of the tramps so they don't have to be laced on and unlaced every time. The post in the daggerboard slot works great for folding and unfolding, the beams fold and unfold fine once we got some ss washers in there to act as bearing surfaces.

Then a bit of sailing:

https://youtu.be/ZtxG0lA9x_o

Sorry for the vertical filming, I wanted to get the sails in.

The boat sails great. Very quick in 8-10 knots of wind, handles great. Reaching and running we had the rudder half way pulled up since we were in very shallow water, and it handled fine. Very zippy feeling, very nice to sail, no heavy tiller pressure on any point of sail, tacks and jibes on a dime. We still have a list of stuff to do but overall the boat is great.