LS-13 New Owner Questions

[Mfoxchicago]

Greetings all! Purchased a circa 1970 LS-13 from a cotton farmer in "dry" W. Texas this past month; my first sailboat to own. Have a couple of questions.

Does the LS-13 "kick up" rudder lose steering efficency at the top end of hull speed? I am use to similar rudders on Hobie Cats, but those rudders stay locked down until they encounter an obstruction. The LS-13 style rudder seems to hick up a bit when I've got the boat moving along at a good clip. Am I over thinking this or should it/does it have some method for locking it down?

Secondly, I need help in locating Murray Jib Snaps. I blew out a jib snap yesterday and need to locate a replacement; mine seem to be smaller than any I have otherwise located on the internet. I need a bronze piston style jib snap with .5"eye - 1.5"length; Murray Part #270394(???). I suspect this is the original jib and jib snaps that came with the boat.

Finally, does anyone know or have information on how to find out the Hull Number for my boat. My boat does have it's original Chrysler Boats Manufacturer Hull Tag showing the serial number; will that tell me the hull number as well? I would like to know or perhaps add the hull number to my mainsail.

Hope someone out there can be of help.

Oh, by the way, I over sailed the conditions today and experienced my first LS-13 capsizing and turtling; it was bound to happend sooner or later. I found the boat much easier to right then a Hobie Cat 16 and the floatation foam designed in to the hull a wonderful feature to this already fine small boat. My local lake was very white cap'd and bailing out the boat was impossible until I got her to shallow water. I sailed her (completly swamped) under jib only what seemed like about 2.5-3 miles to shore, bailed her out, reset her rigging and made it back to the boat ramp safe and none the worse for wear under jib only. I did learn a big lesson about overpowering a small boat and bearing off the wind in ruff chop and 10-15mph winds - won't do that again. As the Captain of the Albatros says in "White Squall": "You can't run from the wind. You trim your sails, face the music, and keep going."