the puddle duck racer build is in motion

Since getting involved in a boat build (see Peter Novak's Eureka Blog and my 18 April post), I have been researching and planning to build my own wooden boat. I have been a irregular reader of the Boating section on the Australian Woodworking forums. I have read numerous books on boat construction and general sailing. I have been to boat shows and skimmed the internet for ideas and advice. Through this process I have narrowed down a list of boats I would one day like to build.

At the top of the list of 'truly possible and practical boats I could build with the time, space and funds available to me at my present skill level' is the Oz Mk II Puddle Duck Racer, otherwise known as the PDRacer. This Oz Mk II version of the PDRacer is designed by Australian boat designer Michael Storer. This boat has been designed to be:

"cheap, creative, and [...] fun on the water".

If you're interested in finding out about this boat and its history, there are two main sites you can read. The first is the official PDRacer site and the other is an Australian PDRacer site.

The current plan is for Peter Novak and I to each build ourselves a PDR. My hope is that we will be able to help each other at various stages of the build. Peter has already completely built and added modifications to his Eureka canoe. Therefore he has a little more experience than myself. He also has the garage space to build things in! I probably have more experience in sailing than Peter, having sailed a comet as a kid. I suspect we will both learn how to sail these boats pretty quickly.

Now while it is regularly said that the boat looks like a matchbox, I think the great thing about this design is its simplicity. We estimate that one boat only cost us about €400 in materials to build - 3 sheets of plywood, some epoxy, a trailer tarp for a sail and a few other bits and pieces. The A$20 plans provided by Michael Storer are extremely detailed, so the complexity in construction is drastically reduced. The materials used in the construction are reasonably easy to acquire, although we have had to think about locally available timber varieties for the boat.

Today the build officially started for me as we started sourcing the various materials required for construction. First on our list was some fibreglass. Since we will be sailing around Slovenia, we had to purchase some extra fibreglass to cover the bottom of the hulls - most lakes and seas around here have some serious rocks around the shores. Therefore we need to provide some added protection to the bottom.

The planned setup for my PDR will also include a lug rig sail (see picture on left). I am particularly interested to try this design as the Goat Island Skiff (another boat on my dream list) uses such a sail. Since I am aiming for a cheap boat, I plan to build a hallow mast too.

Overall I am pretty excited about this build. Due to my current space restrictions (i.e. my wife will not allow me to build the boat in our living room), we will start constructing parts of the boat which can be stored away easily, that is, the centreboards, rudders, masts, yard and booms, as well as the sails. Hopefully by the end of summer we will have moved into another apartment which has its own lockable garage. This is when I will start building the hull.

I hope I will be able to take enough pictures so you can enjoy the build with me. I'll even show you pictures of me being a sawing hack!