"Tom Dacon" wrote in message
...
A few pounds of lead added to to your daggerboard on a 13' boat will not
make any significant difference in stability. Hiking out about a
quarter-inch farther will do more for the boat's stability than any
reasonable amount of lead would do.

The reason people used to add lead to centerboards and daggerboards was
just
to counteract the buoyancy of the wood, and to keep them from floating up
in
the slot.

Well, there's that too; it does tend to float up a 2 or 3 inches unless the
side pressure is enough to keep it down.

If you want to do something more useful, shape the daggerboard into a
really
accurate NACA foil cross-section. Do the same with your rudder. If the
cross-section of those two foils is kind of crude now, you'll be amazed at
the difference.

Thats one thing I will say for the boat; both daggerboard and rudder have
great cross-sections. Don't know why it (Starwing) was a failure; the
workmanship is very good..