Sunfish boats – Everything You Need to Know

Spread the love

Even after spend­ing more than 50 years, the Sun­fish is still hailed as the most famous sail­boat that was ever built. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of this sail­boat is main­ly because of its easy porta­bil­i­ty and low price but apart from these two fac­tors, it also sails well and is a per­fect option for both sea­soned and novice sailors alike. A Sun­fish is usu­al­ly a day­sail­ers used for active sail­ing and it is a sin­gle-hand­ed boat. If the water isn’t flat and the wind isn’t light, you will most like­ly get wet but if you only wish to make the most of it for fun and its user-friend­ly nature, the Sun­fish is undoubt­ed­ly the best option. You just have to move your body when you sail and you can nev­er go wrong with this sail­boat.Sunfish boats – The perfect urban or lake boat that’s still going strong after 5 decades

Learning the pros and cons of Sunfish sailboat

The Pros:
  • Sun­fish boats can be rigged eas­i­ly and they are sailed with a sin­gle line of con­trol
  • In good wind, Sun­fish is a fast plan­ning sail­boat
  • It is the only sail­boat with car-top
  • Dag­ger­board and kick-up radar allow prop­er beach­ing
  • Sun­fish sail­boats are eas­i­ly avail­able and are also cheap

The Cons:

  • Sun­fish sail­boat is capa­ble of hold­ing just 1 full-size adult
  • Can’t race as com­pared to Laser
  • Small spaced free­board and tiny cock­pit can make you wet while sail­ing
  • It can be eas­i­ly flipped by a begin­ner sailor

Fea­tures of a Sun­fish Sail­boat

  • The over­all length of a sun­fish sail­boat is 13 feet 9 inch­es
  • The beam is of 4 feet and 1 inch
  • The dag­ger­board can be mea­sured 6.8 inched upwards and can be adjust­ed 35 inch­es down­wards
  • 120 lbs is the weight of the hull
  • 75 sq.ft is the area of the sail
  • The cock­pit of the sail­boat is self-bail­ing when the boat moves
  • Races in Inter­na­tion­al Sun­fish Class
  • The lateen sail spills auto­mat­i­cal­ly when­ev­er a gust of wind hits the boat

How to store your Sunfish sailboat through the winter season

Though it is a fact that your Sun­fish won’t face any issue with cold or hot tem­per­a­tures but still there are few things that you should do in order to safe­guard the sail rud­der, the hull and the cen­ter­board from dirt, sun and rain. Did you have any idea that the Ultra­Vi­o­let rays from the sun are dam­ag­ing and just as it dam­ages the human skin, it can also dam­age the upper lay­er of the sail­boat?  Hence, just cov­er­ing the boat with a tarp will not always be enough as you also have to take care of the fact that you don’t keep your boat under the sun. You may get for your­self the cost­ly blue tarps made of plas­tic and tie them secure­ly. You might want to read how to dry out a sun­fish sail­boat.

In case you wish to store the Sun­fish right-side upwards, you have to put the mast and spars on top there­by mak­ing a high point for the tarp so that water doesn’t enter eas­i­ly. How­ev­er, one thing that you should not is that this is only pos­si­ble when the tarp is stretched through­out the win­ter sea­son which will most like­ly not hap­pen. Give in a lit­tle bit of padding in between the boom and the deck so that there’s no chance of scratch­ing. You might want to look for more details on how to store a sun­fish sail­boat.

If you ask the experts, they will always ask you to store your Sun­fish upside down as there are mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits of stor­ing it in this man­ner. Water will not col­lect even in the flat places on the cock­pit and on the tarp. More­over, the nat­ur­al curl of the keel will let water to run off fast even when you don’t stretch the tarp prop­er­ly. What should you do if your Sun­fish sail­boat is on a trail­er? You have to place few 2X4s across the trail­er so as to cre­ate a sup­port sys­tem for the boat which is kept upside down. If you can also place tow­els and car­pets between the deck and the boards, this will again help you in pre­vent­ing scratch­es.

The spars of the sail­boat are usu­al­ly made of alu­mini­um and hence they can eas­i­ly be exposed to the ele­ments but make sure that the sun has a dam­ag­ing impact on the plas­tic sheaves and end caps of the blocks. If there is not enough space in the garage to store the mast and spars, you can store them under the Sun­fish. The end-caps are eas­i­ly replace­able when time aris­es and they are also less cost­ly.

So, don’t you think that’s a lot of infor­ma­tion on how you should store your Sun­fish sail­boat? If you are a crazy sailor who has a Sun­fish, try to take the best care of it so that you can retain its good qual­i­ty for the years to come.

FAQ

Who is the Sun­fish sail­boat ded­i­cat­ed to?

Alcort Inc. is the mak­er of the sun­fish sail­boat and these kinds first appeared near­ly in the year 1952 and then they were con­sid­ered as the ‘next gen­er­a­tion’ improve­ment of the actu­al boat, called the Sail­fish. The Sun­fish is a per­son­al size, beach-launched sail­boat that fea­tures a flat hull that car­ries a crab claw and a sail that is mount­ed on an un-stayed mast. Thanks to its huge appear that it was com­mend­ed by the Amer­i­can Sail­boat Hall of Fame in 1995.

How to Store a Sun­fish Sail­boat?

While stor­ing a sun­fish sail­boat, you may either put the hull right-side up, upright­ly stand­ing or upside down. In case you have a big house where you can acco­mo­date the boat in its nor­mal pose (that is kept on the water), you can do so or else you can place it right side up or upside down. The ben­e­fit of the for­mer posi­tion is that it lets you place rig­ging, spars and the mast on top. Experts sug­gest that the ide­al way of stor­ing a Sun­fish boat is by keep­ing it upside down.

What are the most pop­u­lar Sun­fish sail­boat mod­els?

Hall­berg-Rassy, Beneteau, Nautor’s Swan, Hinck­ley Yachts, Amel Yachts, Catali­na Yachts, Oys­ter Yachts, Tar­tan Yachts, Island Pack­et Yachts and Spark­man & Stephens are the few major sun­fish sail­boat brands. All these brands have become pop­u­lar due to more than one rea­son. You have to do a mar­ket research before choos­ing one for your­self.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *