Just want to start with saying that the daggerboards for these boats are TERRIBLE!
They flex too much, chip to easily, are poorly built, and break for silly reasons.

Does anyone else share my frustration?

I've talked to some foil builders and they can't believe how crappy and cheapl these boards are. The bonding is terrible, there is no epoxy used, and very little carbon.

I broke a daggerboard on my boat in just 2 months and I just saw a board completly separatate after a fairly low speed impact with a rock.

Has anyone out there found a solution? New builder? cheap fix?

My boards also look like they have been used for 5 years when they have only been used in about 5 regattas. They have chips all over and are already hooked.

I'm loosing sleep over this!

The new boats are also coming with little notches in the back of the well to fit carpeting. My boat came in the same container as some of these and doesn't have this.

Almost finished making a pair for mine.

teamVMG:

Are you documenting your build on a website. Love to see how you are doing with it.

NACRA has scrapped the jibbing centre boards. I would say this is the different between the two wells.

I'd be interested in seeing your process as well. A friend of mine is going to try to make some this winter.

I'm aware they scrapped the jibing daggerboards but would making the distance in the back of the well bigger help reduce the jibing?

Not directly. Simply put, the leading edge of the board moves as much as the trailing edge, meaning the whole slot is a different shape. This has to do with loading the board correctly so that it jibes to the correct place in the case. The notch in the back of the case (as you describe it) simply creates space for carpet to fix the board in position. After you add the carpet the resulting gap is actually smaller and fixes the board in place. It's a simple approach to fitting a board into a hull, the production tolerances are greater resulting in cheaper production costs but the trade off that reduction in accuracy.
Just to be 100% clear I haven’t seen this notch in the NACRA case as you describe it. It sounds exactly the same as what Hobie has done in the wildcat and that is what I have described above.
Possibly the problems you are describing is why NACRA has moved away from the jibbing boards and chosen this new solution.

Here is a representation of how it works, looking down from the top. I have exaggerated for this discussion.

On the right is the filled in daggerboard and on the left...obviously the Gybing.

There is a fair amount of space, on each side, required for the Gybers which may lead to too much extra drag in the water also it tends to chew up the trailing edge. My daggerboard's trailing edges are being repaired right now.

While filling I left enough space in the back part, after filling, to allow the trailing edge to have plenty of room. I do not want the same problem again. The space is about equal to what Nacra does, since they started installing the boards fixed and not gybing. I have seen new boats with carpet and without carpet in that area but I do not think it matters if there is enough space so the trailing edge does not touch.

Later,
Dan

Very interesting - at long last I understood what a gybing daggerboard is! I now wonder if the fact that a boat has gybing daggerboards does influence how much (if at all) one has to lift the boards downwinds. On my Cap I have the feeling that this is only necessary when wind is > 20kts. This is confirmed by the guys of Landenberger Sails. Pretty unusual, I guess ...

On the Cap, we have not seen the trailing edge damage Dan notes above. I've sailed happily with the stock set-up since 2006. We find that we start pulling the boards on the run when we get to solid double-trap conditions on the beat. If I'm on the trampoline to fly the 'chute, boards stay down.

I don't think this is quite right. If you look down the trunk of an infusion you will see that the trunk pinches the dagger about 2/3 of the way back. So the gybing takes place around the pinch point, not at the back, at least I think.