Hi all, my name is Jose and i've just bought an old Minisail here in Spain. I guess it's a GRP monaco with cockpit.
The boat is in acceptable condition but needs some refurbisment (rudder & daggerboard needs painting.. the hull have some cracks to repair better) and some improvements.
I'm wondering if you could help me with few doubts.
An important lack is the boom vang which is now rigged with a fixed rope between boom and mast without pulleys. I want to improve it with a regulable system. The question is how many pulleys do you recommend to install for the vang? Do you have some prefered layout for this system?
Thanks in advance

Hola Jose,

Glad you made it to the forum.
Your boat, indeed a Monaco II is equipped as a beach sailer, as some Minisails were sold and used back in the 7'ties (love the four added handles at the corners by the way)... And that's fine because they were designed for this purpose.
Their potential to get competitive in clubracing with them, led to various improvements making the boat much more performant.
Yours as it is now is original, let's think you want to get out sailing and have some fun asap. Well, without a new sail and a stiffer boom (the lower horizontal spar) you don't need to bother about pulleys for a boom vang.
The combination of a "bendy boom" (the 35mm one you have) with a strong vang will make the boom bend more making you sail even fuller, just the opposite of what you wanted.
So if you sail with the original boom, the simple fixed rope will do fine, just to keep it from skying up during broad reaching and running.

Yes, you can make the Minisail better in going upwind (or going upwind at all), that would require a stiffer boom and a good sail. For the boom vang then there are some proven ways to get around that.
Will need to digg in the archive to give you some pictures explaining this.
Untill then, have fun with the boat.

Thank you very much Ronny,
This afternoon I'm going to sail my Minisail for the first time as it is now. I hope to have fun despite the bendy boom and simple vang! It's a nice breeze about 10 knots here.
For the stiffer boom I suppose it could be made from aluminium tube 2mm thickness. What diameter should be enough? OD 55mm? 60mm? Or 65mm?
Thanks!

Hi Pelired,
2 mm thick is going to be very heavy, all booms I have ever seen are less than half of a mm.
My boom is 65mm diameter and is a section of old mast.

Thanks Rob, I'll try to find aluminium tube less thick.
As other option I'm also thinking of modifying the original boom by attaching a square or "U" aluminium profile along the boom lenght to increase the stiffness. I'm not sure if it could work, or if it is a bad idea.

After first sea test I have more work to do.. The daggerboard vibrates a lot due to bad adjust in the case... The fixing point for the vang in the deck broke down (one of the screws cracked)...

Stiffening the boom with a secondary profile would always only help in one direction to resist the bending. Extra negative effects with a square profile would be damaging the sail if it's on top', or hitting your head if it's below the boom. I wouldn't recommend the approach.
Try local sailing clubs and ask for abandoned masts. They have some for sure. Why? because they tend not to get disposed of on the one hand, and never get re-used on the other because there is hardly any use for them.

Adjusting the daggerboard slot would cure the vibration symptom only a little bit, to cure the cause you would need to take a look at the board's section. Chances are it's a remake with only slightly rounded edges. These edges need to be carefully shaped (see Andy Campbell his summary of how to go about restoring a Minisail, including making a daggerboard (pages 4&5).
If you choose to make a new one it's worth to source for high quality grade 18mm plywood.

"The fixing point for the vang in the deck broke down" ... So the arrangement is not "a boom vang which is now rigged with a fixed rope between boom and mast", but it's fixed between the boom and the deck?
Mmm, this will require some surgery. Depending on how you plan to re-rig the boat there are some quick and dirty solutions and some more elaborate ones.

Hope you had some fun with the Minisail on your first sail anyway.

Yes I enjoyed a lot with the boat it is really fun in broad reach surfing even small waves! I'm looking forward to test again after some improvements.
Many thanks for the good advices and very useful link of a Minisail refurbishing.

Boom: In the report Andy is using 2mm thick tube for the boom (page 17, boom: 50mm OD x 2mm WT x 3200mm L), but I realise in the pictures it seems to be too thick.
For my current boom I was planning to attach a 20x20mm aluminium profile in the lower side, but i'll better follow your advice looking for a used mast or boom.

Centerboard: About the centerboard you are right again, the forward and aft edges are round shaped. I'll try to sand it in a better shape before painting the centerboard.

Vang: The simple vang is fixed by a deck screwed piece (bridge) just in the aft of the mast. As one of the screws have broken and I want to rig an adjustable vang, I plan to install two or three new bridges in the aft of the mast to distribute the efforts in more screws. Can I thread the screws directly in holes drilled in the fiberglass? (I haven't access to put a nut in the other side). Is there a reinforcement piece of wood in this area below the fiberglass?.
Thanks!

Laser mast top section is 3.6 metres, see if you can pick up one from club off an abandoned boat.

Laser vang is also ok for minisail, this one
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSB7i7SBW31fs_WDderrH9fL2f2NK4FY K7CDMUFeHa1HW3Zj5wy

You can also put vang to bottom of mast, rather than deck fixed,

Hi all, i'm going on with my minisail restoring and I'd like to install a central system for the sheet. Is it possible to do this in a minisail?, if yes, where is the best place to thread the piece for mounting the central pulley?

By other hand i'll glue a plastic ring around mast hole as original ring is lost. I've read that original ring includes the boat number then in my boat the number is unknown. I neither have a sail number and I haven't found any number writen in the centerboard or rudder. Is it possible to assign and register a new boat/sail number? What is the way to do this?

Thanks in advance

Ronnie best person for number.
Centre bracket mounts to dagger board, Their are probably photo's somewhere, again Ronnie probably knows where they are.

Hi Jose,

I can give you some suggestions for a sailnumber, still keep in mind that the reformed Minisail class association (2004 or thereabout) started off without a sail or hull number listing of produced boats.
We estimate some 5- to 7000 units were ever made. Most of them now gone and a few still around.
We did attempt to make a boatlist of known boats on a previous version of the c.a. website, a snapshot of the list can be found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160706202231/http://minisail.org.uk/?page_id=806

I think your boat, a 7-ties Monaco II would look period perfect with a two- or three thousand number.
My suggestion: 2289. That's two numbers higher as my Belgian export Monaco II (now scrapped but I kept sailnumber 2887 for the re-built Meson).
Mind this number might be taken without us knowing, still odds are low it will show up one day.