Discovery 20

I'm thinking about a Discovery 20, but I can't find much online about setup/tear down times. Richard 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!

 

What I've read is 2-3 hours to demount a D20? Why not go with one of Richards boats?
Looks like the Discovery 21 has a folding system-seems like it would be worth some investigation: Discovery 21 https://www.chriswhitedesigns.com/discovery-21

 

Dicovery 21 numbers: LOA 21’3”; LWL 20’9”; Beam 8’6” (folded) to 15’9” (amas extended); Draft 10” to 4’; Displ. 1,400 lbs.; Sail area 279 sq. ft.; Auxiliary outboard optional; SA/D 35.7; D/L 70; L/B 1.35

Sail Plan including asy spin:

 

Thanks for the reply; I'm aware of the 21. I'm trying to avoid building something here There's a 20 for sale in my price range, but the boat club I sail out of only has room for a folded boat on the trailer. So I'm interested in how long it takes to unfold the 20, install the bolts, and go sailing. There are, I think, eight bolts total, four on each beam, plus the pivot bolt. The beams and amas fold up like the Strike, but the Strike beams land in a U-shaped channel. The D20 beams seem to sort of land flush, and have to be bolted in.

So I'm hoping I can chat with someone who has owned one and can tell me if it's twenty minutes or two hours. The Cyclone 23 is more in the latter camp, I understand, and that's kind of a deal-breaker for me. The Strike is more in the former camp, but an 18 feels a bit small to me and I'm not a huge fan of the stealth-fighter wing shape.

But maybe a former or current D20 owner will wander by?

 

Why don't you write or call Chris and ask him?

 

I've emailed him, but I'd like to hear from owners in the wild too.

 

As a Strike 20 builder/owner, I can tell you it is definetly 2 hours, not twenty minutes !

 

Hi, thanks for the reply. How long does it take you, from pulling up to sailing off, do you think? I've never even been around a boat that folded with the amas over the main hull, so I'm trying to get a feeling for what the time sinks are here.

 

In my case, the boat stays on a mooring and I use to launch / retire the boat twice a year. My outriggers are heavy (Nacra 5.8, around 60 kg) and I use to pull them up or down simultaneaously, unless the boat flip on the side ! as she is beamy (5.10 m !), the outriggers stand very high on the trailer when up. I use a center pod above the cockpit together with two sheets with 1/7 ratio to pull up or down the outriggers.
The complete process from the trailer to sea takes at least half a day with two people. As for sailing it takes 20 minutes at the mooring to hoist the sail and leave.

 

bigger boats always take longer to assemble and rig. In part because of the weights involved, in part because the extra size means further to walk around a bigger boat. Usually it is the mast raising that takes the time. It is just possible to push the mast up on a Strike 18 by one man power alone (I can do it at any rate). But a longer mast will need some sort of pole/lever to help raise it. So for speed of assembly I suggest a 16-18ft trimaran. The times I give on my website are times I took when I was hurrying and had no children to look after, no spinnaker to rig etc

Farriers are not quick either. I have helped several owners assemble/disassemble their boats. allow 45 minutes even if you do it every weekend. I also see most F boat owners keep their boats at full width rather than fold them even in small marinas.

Few beach cats are disassembled for transport. Most owners trail at their full beam, even in Cornwall.

My brother has been sailing Lasers for 30 years. it takes him at least 20 minutes to rig it (I cannot see why its that long but that is what he says)

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

 

Thanks, Richard. I missed your reply.

We bought the boat, so I guess I'll see how well trailer sailing it works out. It's a nice boat, very pretty shape and in nice shape. Can't wait to get her sailing!

 

KSONeil, can you please post some pics of your D20?

 

Neill,

Too bad you are on the wrong side of Texas, I'd really like to see the boat in person.
Please post pictures, when you can.

And a sailing report.

Thanks,
Marc

 

Hi

Not too many pictures yet, but here you go:

Discovery 20 https://imgur.com/a/vc0jekz

That's the pictures from the ad, and a couple of our first work day last Saturday.

We left Texas Thursday night, drove all day Friday, saw the boat Saturday morning, bought it by noon, drove to a hardware store and installed new lights on the trailer, then to a Walmart and put on a set of cheap Walmart wheels and tires (the tires looked great until you looked at the dates... 14 years old!), drove Saturday and most of Sunday, got back early afternoon Sunday. Right at 2400 miles round trip.

The boat looks great. The list of things to do is not zero, but it's not extensive. It had anti-fouling on since it had been kept in the water; we're going to dry-sail it, so that got scraped off last Saturday, and we'll put a coat of paint on the bottom at least. There's a short list of fiberglass patching and stuff to do, especially on the inner ends of the front beams. The whole thing could use a paint job, though that may wait a season. I think we'd like a kick-up rudder housing. I think we'd like a downwind sail. Better foils and a carbon mast may be off in the distance somewhere, but we should probably just sail the boat some first, I think

But the construction itself is great, solid and tight and light. The insides of all the hulls are dry and dusty, the seams and fillets are tidy and nicely done, the beams look good, it's all fair, it's a really nice job. The guy who built it showed us pictures of the 30-odd foot Herreshoff he built years ago, and a 40' cat-ketch he built, there was a nice B&B Lapwing in his back yard... he's in his 80s, been building boats for decades, he knows what he's doing. It's a nice job.

So, it's in my driveway now, we're going to fiddle about with it, do some small repairs, make some improvements aimed at making drysailing practical, etc. I can move it to the boat club in Galveston in January, so I foresee some cold weather sailing in my future.

I'll try to keep the thread up to date as we do stuff and go sailing. And Upchurchmr, if you ever get to the coast give me a yell and I'll take you for a ride.

 

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:



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:



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.