A short, stout bungie cord with the middle across the after edge of the dagger board and the hooks over the forward edge of the midship thwart on either side of the "hump" around the daggerboard slot will keep the board from floating up without making it difficult to get up when wanted.

As for the jib, you definitely do not want to sheet that in hard.  This will cause the jib to backwind the luff (forward edge) of the main and kill its drive.  The jib should normally be sheeted so that its "angle of attack" is slightly greater than the mainsail's.  This will avoid backwinding the mainsail too much, get good thrust from the jib itself, and let the jib do something to smooth the turbulence the mast creates at the leading edge of the mainsail and thus improve the mainsail's thrust a bit as well.

Hope that helps.  Just be patient with yourself as you work through the learning curve.  <;-)

....Michael

   Thanks Michael !!!!!

Diego,

I saw your boat there. It turned out really well. Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you.

Laszlo

Oh, sorry, Diego, I forgot about the part of your question regarding the oars....

If you look through the photo galliers for the standard and take-apart versions of PMD, you'll get some ideas about how folks handle this in various ways.  In the PMD take-apart gallery, #9 of 66 right now is a shot of me sailing our PMD (lug rigged).  Briefly, I have an extra pair of open oarlocks which I place in the forward pair of sockets (for rowing from the forward seat when there is a single passenger in the stern). leaving the "captured" round oarlocks in the after pair of sockets, I pull the grips of the oars forward, place the collars in the open rowlocks, and secure the thing lightly with loops of small shock cord I keep rigged for the purpose.

With the blades oriented vertically, this keeps everything reasonably out of the way in a fairly secure way, though they will pop out in a hard encounder with a dock or some such, which is better than breaking the oar.  I've not had any trouble with lines fouling on either end of the oars with my lug sail, which has its sheet rigged to the middle part of the lower yard (some would call that a boom) as you can see in the photo.  With your gunter sloop, you might have to be careful about the jib sheets (maybe not) and the mainsheet if yours is sheeted with a bridle at the aft end of the boom.

Anyway, study the photos, and something will likely seem right to you.

These are great, versatile little boats, lively rowboats for something so short, wide, and curvey, and way better sailboats than I'd expected.  I wish you all joy of getting through your learning curve!

.....Michael

Hello Diego!  Sorry that I did not get a chance to meet you there, but I did get a good look at your boat.  Excellent Build, you should be proud!

With the lumpy water and lightish winds, the conditions were not the greatist for sailing and you were not the only one struggling.  I got a good look at you as you neared the finish line and at that point, neither of your sails were trimmed nearly enough.  Both swere luffing which is why they were not giving you any drive.  Gramps' words above are good.  I will add that stronger wind you sheet both sails in more and ease them out in lighter conditions like Saturday.  In any event, you must steer the boat so that you keep the sails full or you won't go anywhere.

Based upon the questions above, is it a fair guess that you are a novice sailor?  If so, get some lessons because it will give you the skills and confidence to better enjoy your wonderful boat.  Many try to teach themselves but sailing is one of those things that you will never be good at unless you get some good instruction.   

Hope to see you next year!

  Thanks all!

It was my first time sailing with a jib, and I've just had it very "tight" on the same side of the main sail... always, and I see that this created a lot of problems.

I am a strong windsurfer (well... 30 years ago), and very good in hobby cats and other small boats... but it was my first time with two sails... in a new sailboat... my first time rigging, etc... 

Going "up wind" was just a nightmare, and I decided to just row the last mile, or so... by wife was also in the sailboat and she was very uncomfortable and coming back as fast as possible was the priority... but yes, things didn't look good and I will need to adjust a few things and to learn.

Thanks for the positive feedback regarding the "Buen Ayre" !!! ("Good Air" with a spelling mistake). I was born in Argentina, in Buenos Aires... 

I am looking forward meeting all again in the next event.

Cheers

Diego

Hi Diego,

Here's a short video in which you can see my daggerboard held down by a little bungie chord.  When I am on a run, with the wind at my back, I'll release and pull it up for less drag.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hcsWFWmmrdeHXQrN7

Charlie

   Grab a book on sailing.  I'm sure there are tons of YouTubes also, but for those of us of a certain age, no substitute for sitting down w/ a real book with real diagrams and descriptions.  One I got ages ago is The Handbook of Sailing by Bob Bond and it's quite good.  Another classic but newer is Sailing Fundamentals by Gary Jobson, an Annapolis fixture in the sailing scene.  

Basically one of the things I've had to relearn with my Skerry is that you need boatspeed before the daggerboard will start providing lift to get you moving forward upwind, and not sideways, so I always have to start on a reach to get some speed, then harden up to a closehauled course, and even then, if the breeze is fluky or there's too much chop you have to ease off the sails, steer a bit further from the wind and keep that speed up so the daggerboard will work for you.  It's all in both those books, but particularly in the sections on dinghies.  Big keelboats like my old Tartan 30 have a much thicker keel that starts "lifting" to windward at much lower speeds so we forget about the quirks of dinghy sailing.

Oh, and EVERYONE starts out trimming the headsail (jib) too tightly, so it's not weird that you had troubles.  Basically, so long as there is more than 5 knots of wind, the mantra of "If in doubt, let it out." works pretty well for both main and jib (within reason).  In really light wind, it's harder to know if you are too loose since the sail may not fill in any case.