PDRacer Sailboat

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Cabin & Overnight

There are many different ways to make your sailboat habitable for sleeping, the simplest is just to lay down in the cockpit and close your eyes, possibly throw a mosquito net over the cockpit to keep the bugs out. Below are a number of other solutions that provide various advantages beyond the basic cockpit floor.

Polytarp Rain Shield
Simplest thing you can do is get a piece of polytarp and drape it over the boom. With a couple of lines to the mast, you can tighten it up. Wear a mosquito suit to keep the bugs from eating you.

Cockpit Tent
Go buy a small tent, cut the bottom out of it, and snap it on top of your pdracer, poof, you have an overnighting boat. There is such a wide varieties of tents on ebay, that you should be able to find one to fit almost any boat.

If you have an 18" airbox in the stern, and a 12" airbox in the bow, there is 6'5" worth of length if you sleep diagonally in the cockpit.

Puddle Duck Tube Tent
Basically, it is 2 pieces of plywood with fabric stretched between that forms a bottomless tube tent. The aft end has bungee cords that hook onto your boat, and the forward end has a single line that you pull and cleat off inside to keep tension on the tube so it doesn't sag.

The fabric doesn't go all the way around, it only curls around the bottom and stops so you don't have to sew in a door. Just climb underneath it, tension the line and you have simple defense against the mosquitos with hardly any setup time.

Sea Flea
This class legal PDRacer was built by Jason Nabors of Texas. The first PD that has a cabin on it. She has lots of details, see the photo section of the discussion group for more pictures.

Osprey
Concept & sketch by Jason Nabors - EZ reefing junk main, optional wing keel, wide and long turtle hatch for rowing from the companionway, plenty of storage, self bailing cockpit with ping pong ball scuppers, shopping cart handle for pushing and controlling main sheets, wraparound plexyglass cabin, high mid bulhead to keep water out of cabin. For more details, see the files section of the PDRacer yahoo group.

Dodger Cabin
The primary use of my boat is with my kids, so I need a lot of cockpit space. So came up with this idea of a temporary cabin that resembles a dodger. It just sits in the forward end of the cockpit, and to cover the rest, I made a set of cover boards. Instead of hinges, I just glued strips of vynil between the boards. The board which leans against the dodger is held with a small line tied to a cleat inside. All of it just sits on top of the cockpit, isn't fastened down, so if I had to make a quick exit, can just kick it off. I also made it's length small enough so that I could row with it on, and short enough to see over while sailing, but tall enough so that I could roll over in the middle of the night.

Tried anchoring out, but the waves thumping against the bow transom wouldn't allow me to sleep, so I dragged her on shore. Does a great job of keeping the heat in, gets pretty cold at night here in the desert (especially in December). Real surprise is how great it is to keep the spray out while sailing!

Pop Top Cabin
Inspired by Sea Flea, this is a cardboard mockup of a bolt on type cabin. Basically just a box, while sailing the box is in the forward end of the cockpit. At night when the boat is pulled up on the shore, you raise up the cabin and pin or bolt it there somehow to form the main headroom of your cabin. Then a cover can be erected or snapped on the aft edge of your cockpit to fully seal you in from the bugs.

Black Bart Shelter
Ed Heffernan added support legs so his PD could be flipped upside down, and turned into a shelter. Read all about his adventure at: [click here]

West Wight Puddle
This is a Wren, which was designed by Martin Pook. Many people think it looks like a one berth West Wight Potter 15.

Micro Clipper
This boat was designed by John McKissick. The small cabin could be for partial shelter, or it could be a large storage area for camping gear. One concept is to have a large drop board that closes off the cabin, and when removed, it leaves the cabin floor flush so you lay half in, and half out of the cabin.

Sand Flea
Matt Layden designed, built, competed in the 2007 Everglades Challenge, and came in 10th place overall with this boat. Pure simplicity, the side air tanks are for storage and emergency floatation, and to sleep inside he just lays down in the cockpit and pulls the hatch cover closed.

Sleeper
Derek Van Doan designed this boat to be a tender for his larger boat, also as a solo minimal cruiser. The concept is to either sit in the small footwell facing backwards as you sail, or to sit on the side decks. When it is time to sleep, you crawl in the hatch and lay down inside to sleep. Very interesting concept, and there is a significant write up about this design at www.smallsailboats.co.uk. The only problems I see, is that the original design is only 17" high at the maximum point, which isn't enough for me to roll over, and in the middle of the night when I have to make a phone call to mother nature, opening the cabin would allow all of the mosquitos in the world to enter.

Shitter
James Francis built and sailed a little boat that he called a Shitter. It is very similar to the Sleeper. For the full story, see DuckWorksMagazine.com.

Crumpton Barge
John Harris of CLC was intrigued by the Brick and the Sleeper, and designed this boat which is being built by his friend Craig O'Donnell who is the famous author of The Cheap Pages. It has a chimney type structure at the bow to provide more headroom and space while below. Also the deck height is a little taller to provide roll over room inside. John first wanted to call it the "MicroSuperBrick", but Craig kept calling it a "Crumpton Barge". I asked John what a Crumpton was, and this is what he said: "Crumpton is a weird little place in very-rural Maryland, on the Eastern Shore, near where both Craig and I live. I don't think there's a town associated with Crumpton, it's more like an area. Anyway, Crumpton is know within about a 30 mile radius for its auction every Wednesday. The auction fills an entire field and some buildings as well. The "vibe" at the auction is that of an immense yard sale; it's where the locals take stuff they clean out of their garages. When I was a freshman at a nearby college, I went there to buy a chair for my dorm room. I found the chair, amidst a lot that included a box of Elvis-on-velvet portraits; a box of 1970's track lighting; and a box of 1970's drapes. I got the chair for $5 and left the rest of the lot in the field. Thus, Crumpton is a sort of garbage-picker's mecca. That's what "Crumpton" is.

SqueezeBox
Jeff Gilbert designed this boat as a tender and rescue escape craft. It is also along the same concept as a Sleeper. One boat was partially built that I know of: pic 1 pic 2 pic 3 pic 4

Vash
I was seriously thinking about building a Crumpton, but wanted more space inside. Was sketching around with ideas and came up with this one, the concept is that there is a folding hard top. The top is stored below while you sail, and at night you can unfold it and place over top to enclose your cabin. The windows are clear deckplates that are mounted from the inside, and have mosquito netting on the outside. You can unscrew them from the inside to allow cross ventilation.

Vash 2
Along the same lines as the Vash, only this one has a little better lines, and you would use a cockpit tent with it to aleviate the lack of headroom for middle of the night mother nature calls. This version has a pair of bilge keels, so there is no daggerboard to worry about banging up. Also it will sit flat on the beach.

Brick Pocket Cruiser
Magnus Ericsson proposed this bolt on cabin for an original Bolger Brick. He wrote up more of a description at Duckworks Magazine You might notice the extreme rocker of the Brick. If a person sat at the position on the left, the Brick's bow would rise up in the air very high. The PDRacer has a different rocker shape which allows sitting so far aft and keeping the boat in trim.

Gordon Tank
Wil Gordon sailed a Brick and was enamored with how such a simple boat was usefull. He figured if some is good, then more is better. This is a 5' wide by 12' long extension of the brick concept that he called a "Tank". It was completed to this point, then due to other circumstances it had to be destroyed and hauled to the dump.

Selway 8
This is a blue water keelboat that is only 8' long. For more info about this design, see Selway Fisher Website

There are many other small boats that have crossed large oceans, see FamousSmallBoats.com for more of them.

PuddleDox
Matt Layden designed a few simple blue water cruiser that is sailed enterly from inside. The most refined, and the one he currently sails is called a Paradox. It has chine runners instead of a keel, and has a lot of internal ballast. The floor is hollow and is used for storage, the supplies in there also provide ballast. In 2003 he sailed this design in the Watertribe Everglades Challenge, and won! Dave and Mindy Bolduc own a previous version of the paradox called "Little Cruiser", you can read about all of their adventures at MicroCruising.com. There is also a bunch of info about the Paradox at smallsailboats.co.uk

Super Brick
Taking the idea to the max, Phil Bolger designed a boat called the Super Brick. It is a huge brick with a cabin on it.

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