CD30 waterline trim

Dan F · Post by **Dan F** » Jul 18th, '06, 13:01

Hello all,

I am the proud new owner of CD30 Sandra Lee (hull #363, which I'm told was the last one.) We just got her in the water three days ago-- and ever since, I have been plagued by the fact that her fore/aft trim seems wrong-- squatting in the stern, high in the bow. On the mooring, in the gentlest of swell, her transom dips in the water. Even with no one in the cockpit.

At first I thought this was an optical illusion, or incorrectly painted waterlines and bootstripe. But then I noticed that the icebox, which has a drain forwards, accumulates water to the aft. And puddles form on the aft end of the side decks, while there are scuppers slightly foreward which should be the low point. Lastly I found another CD30 in our anchorage-- her stern rides a good 8" higher than Sandra Lee's.

I have nothing particularly heavy astern-- just a radar and 2hp outboard. The same appearance whether water tanks (in settees) are full or empty.

I am distressed and slightly panicked. Is it possible that CD placed the ballast incorrectly on the very last CD hull? Have I bought a factory "second"? Or is this a common finding on CD30? Is there anything I can/should do about it?

Any sage advice would be welcomed! Thanks in advance.

-Dan F
Portland, ME

rtbates · Post by **rtbates** » Jul 18th, '06, 13:21

What do you have forward in the way of ground tackle? These boats were designed to carry plenty of ground tackle forward. Seraph, our 25D, had the same stern down trim till I installed a 22lb Bruce on the bow roller, a 16.5lb Bruce, 55 feet of chain and 300 feet of rode in the anchor locker. I also store as much of my heavy tools forward.

Good luck

Dan F · Post by **Dan F** » Jul 18th, '06, 13:34

Hm. I have a 35# CQR, 30' chain, 150' or so of rope-- i.e. not a lot of weight forward, either. So maybe I need a second anchor and a third water tank under the v-bert?

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Jul 18th, '06, 13:42

My first thought was you probably didnt have much chain forward as well, which I see you confirmed. I would think most CD30s carry far more then 30' of chain, though you do have a very nice oversized anchor for the CD30. If you upgraded to say 100' of chain on your primary, then moved your 30' of chain to your secondary it might help trim your boat and give you far better holding. Though if you dont have a windlass the 100' of chain would not be too appealing.

My boat squats a little, even with 375' of chain and 70lbs of anchors on the bow, I have a lot of weight in the back with solar panels, wind generator, windvane, batteries, etc.. At some point you just have to accept some amount of incorrect trim. Though 8" off sounds rather extream and suprising, I know I would want to address that.

Kurt · Post by **Kurt** » Jul 18th, '06, 15:03

Dan,
My experience with both my previously owned CD26 & my current CD27 is that the water tank under the V-berth needed to be full in order for the boat to sit properly on it's water line. I didn't like carrying around all that fresh water (I'm on the Great Lakes) so I removed the water tank and moved the batteries up there. That corrected the problem on both boats. Where are the batteries located on a CD30?
Kurt

Dan F · Post by **Dan F** » Jul 18th, '06, 15:06

My batteries (four of them) are in the forward end of the port cockpit locker-- probably not helping. But moving them to v-berth would mean some pretty long battery cables. Plus, I'm not sure I'd like sleeping over that much electricity!

Glen C · Post by **Glen C** » Jul 18th, '06, 15:09

The trim problem is common. I don't think what I have loaded aft in my CD30c is consistent with the design...5 gal water heater, 2 group 31 batteries, spinnaker, extra sheets and dock lines, a 5hp outboard, bbq grill and propane, helm seat, emergency tiller, etc. She tends to squat a bit.

As a test, I loaded three 50 lb bags of play sand under the v-berth and she trimmed very well...the stern rose a few inches (certainly not 8 tho). Didn't notice a tendency to hobbyhorse, but did notice that she cut thru small waves/wakes much better and sailed a bit faster.

If I converted the ~20 gal holding tank to a water tank, the weight would be about the same...until the tank was emptied, of course.

I've been considering moving the house batteries (about the same weight) under the v-berth (reduce weight aft and add it forward), but the cost of wire and the voltage drop concern me...others have done it with flooded cell batteries, but I haven't heard of anyone here doing it with AGM's or Gels. If I was sure it would work, I wouldn't mind so much spending the money on the wire, fuses, battery boxes, etc.

I will be adding more chain later...and if the batteries were up there it sure would be easy to wire in a windless

Dan F · Post by **Dan F** » Jul 18th, '06, 15:21

This is all making me feel much better. In fact, thinking about an extra 30 or 40 gallons of water up front is making me feel downright excited. So glad I bought a boat that comes with a "community"! Thanks folks.

Dan & Pat · Post by **Dan & Pat** » Jul 18th, '06, 17:49

Dan,

I agree with you, this site is a source of a great wealth of information. My findings have been that if you don't get answers here, you won't find them anywhere else.

Water can be a great substance for distributing weight. Fresh water weighs 8.34 lbs per gallon. That means an extra 20 gallons of water anywhere you can put it, such as forward in the fresh water tank, will give you about 166 lbs of weight forward of your center of gravity.

In my research about my CD 25, somewhere on this board I found a ratio which explains that it takes 400+ pounds to lower my boat 1" in the water. Off the top of my head, I don't remember what this figure is called, but I believe that it came from the specifications that I located under where to look at the top of The Cape Dory Board page. That being the case, you're going to have to relocate several THOUSAND lbs in order to make 8" worth of difference.

"another Dan"

xnk · Post by **xnk** » Jul 18th, '06, 19:20

That's not quite right. The amount of extra weight needed aboard to displace another inch of water along the entire waterline is a very different thing than fore-and-aft trim. You certainly don't need to add thousands of pounds of anchor chain and/or water to the forepeak in order to raise the stern eight inches. Keep in mind that torque increases linearly with distance from the center of the boat. Twenty gallons (166 pounds) of water 10 feet forward of the boat's center is going to have 1660 foot pounds of righting moment, rather than just 830 if it's only five feet forward.

I'd be surprised if you can't trim the boat properly by redistributing the already present weight, and adding a bit more anchor chain.

Dan F · Post by **Dan F** » Jul 18th, '06, 21:44

I might have exagerated slightly about the 8" (typical man). Maybe it's more like 6. I didn't have a tape measure handy when I rowed past the other boat for comparison. Will check more definitively when I'm out next. But, again, thanks for all the advice. Rowing out to Sandra Lee with 200 lbs of sand in the dink would be good exercise at the least.

Bob Maguire · Post by **Bob Maguire** » Jul 18th, '06, 23:50

Dan
Have a CD30 built in '83- Hull No. 273 I believe.

When I was replacing the sanitary hose to the holding tank which is located in the forepeak I noticed that there are several large lead ingots just aft of and below the holding tank. Looks factory installed although impossible to tell for sure. I suspect these were needed to counteract the weight of the MD7A, transmission and V drive, water heater and batteries. I have the opposite problem in that the bow rides low when the holding tank is full. This extra weight will probably have to be removed when I repower with a lighter engine in the fall.

It's hard to believe that Cape Dory would allow such an obvious fault to slip through the cracks. Anyway, sounds like it should be an easy fix for you.

Bob Maguire

The Cape Dory Board

CD30 waterline trim - seeking advice

CD30 waterline trim - seeking advice

what's on the bow?

Great site