Dart 15 Forums

John Constable wrote:

After a layoff from dinghy sailing for some years I've decided to give give catamaran sailing a go and have just bought an old dart 15. Having looked through this site I've realised that the set up is wrong and some parts are missing. Can anyone advise where I can get a retaining spring for the beam clips and a jib halyard block. Or are there suitable alternatives? Also the jib block fixings are missing so I'm going to have to fit the tracks mentioned by others. Can anyone advise what size/length of rivets to use when fitting the tracks?

Bob replied:

Hi John
All parts are available from Brian Phipps at Windsport -see under suppliers on this website.
The pop rivets for the tracks are 5mm diameter. The length needs to be something like >15mm. You can get them at big DIY shops (like B&Q, Homebase, etc)
Best of luck
Bob

John Constable replied:

I'll give Brian a call and get the bits ordered up.

Charles replied:

John

Just be careful of the quality of stainless of the rivets you get. I've had some fairly poor ones from various places.

Steve Sawford (SS Marine see links) advised me to use an alloy called monel, I can vouch for it's high quality, as I had the devil of a job drilling one out to change my UJ, I went through about 3 drill bits!! You'll only be able to get this from marine suppliers, land-lubber hardware suppliers look at you like you've 2 heads if you ask for a particular type of metal in the rivet!

Bob replied:

Yes - good point. You definitely DO NOT want to buy stainless steel rivets (the ones at chandlers some times are as Laser use them on the mast and boom fittings). They are much too hard to use on fibreglass and are very difficult to drill out -as Charles points out.
The ones that you get at DIY shops are usually OK (aluminium alloy) and you get about 20 for not much more than ?1

John Constable replied:

Hi Charles,
Thanks for the info. I'll avoid the stainless types and try and get these monel rivets.