PDRacer.com Puddle Duck Racer Simplicity Is The Essence Of True Beauty
Introduction
Our motto is "cheap, creative, and having fun on the water".
The PDRacer is a one design racing sailboat that is basically a plywood box with a curved bottom, and is the easiest boat in the world to build.
Free plans, free club, all boats must have have the lower 10" of their hulls be alike, but the rest is up to the builder.
A simple hull can be made from 2 sheets of plywood, titebond II glue, and latex house paint.
Building from scratch, it only took me 10 hours to make the basic hull on my boat.
The sail can be made from polytarp, or borrowed from another sailboat.
You could literally make a complete boat for $100 or less using materials that came from your local Home Depot.
There are many different ways you could build your boat.
Many Other Uses
Not just for racing, this is a great boat to use for recreational purposes - and in most states a boat this small does not need to be titled or registred.
The hull shape carries 630 lbs.
One member took 2 adults and 3 kids for an afternoon sail.
Another went on a 3 day cruise with his wife and slept aboard at anchor every night.
If you think about it, many people go backpacking for long periods, a PDRacer can hold much more gear and water than a backpack.
She also works good as a row boat, and motor boat.
I often take my kids out rowing in mine, instead of a sail rig I put a big beach umbrella in the mast sleeve so they can sit in the shade.
If you like fishing, you can row her into the shallow areas that power boats can't get to.
She is very stable, enough that you can stand up and cast.
Why should you build one?
For some reason, many sailors think they should only have one sailboat - please realize it is perfectly OK to have several sailboats.
The PDRacer is very small and easy to store, yet big enough to carry a couple of people, and fast enough to be fun.
Build one and have some fun.
If you loose interest or don't have time, then stand her upright in the corner of your garage or out back till you get the itch to go sail her again.
They are lots of fun, and so simple to build that you can be on the water having fun in no time.
Also it is a great boat to build as your first.
If you are planning on building another boat, consider building one of these first to get some experience about boat building.
The lessons you will learn, will help you imensely on your next projects.
Don't know how to sail?
For most of the people that build these, it is their first boat too and they don't know how to sail either!!
Sailing is easy, just point the boat in the direction you want to go, then pull in the sail till it stops flapping.
The best way to learn is to have your own boat, and take it out on a very light wind day, on a very small lake, and give it a try.
Take a set of oars, and if you can't figure out how to sail back, then drop your sail and row back.
If you know a sailor, then invite them along and they will help you out, the PDRacer can easily carry 2 adults.
Afraid it will leak?
All boats leak, especially wooden ones.
Just because it might leak, doesn't mean you will sink - thats what the floatation chambers are for.
When you are really hauling along on a windy day, splashing along, you will get more spray water than from any leak.
Just take along a bottomless chlorox bottle, and when the water gets to about an inch deep inside the cockpit, just do a couple of scoops to flip the water out.
Afraid it won't be perfect the way you build it?
A big part of puddle ducking is to continually tinker with your boat to improve it.
So just figure which configuration attracts you the most and start building it.
Later if you don't like it, you can modify it, or just build another hull.
They have almost no resale value, so no matter what you do to it, you are not going to ruin it's value.
You can also transfer your hull number to a new hull, for more info: [click here]
Club Membership
Anyone can become a puddle ducker, all you have to do is build (or get) a puddle duck racer.
There are no protected territories and any puddle ducker is welcome to organize events and invite others to go sailing.
We have a member list so you can contact others in your area.
If they have their email listed, that means you can email them direct to invite them to go sailing or other puddle duck related topics.
Hatch Events
Want to increase the number of puddle ducks in your local area?
One of the things we do is organize "hatch events".
This is where people organize a day (or weekend) to get together and build ducks together.
Purchase materials together, make templates, and build as much as you can in one day (or over a weekend).
Sometimes people do this at a person's garage and try to make 3 or 4 boats, sometimes it is a big scale like Gordon Seiter does up in Canada, where he annually rents an ice rink and many ducks get built.
Invite other puddle duckers in the area, a bunch will show up just to help build -- because we really like any excuse to building boats.
Class Logo
We used to have a graphic that looked like a duck with a sail sticking out of it's back, and another that resembled a rubber duck.
The problem with those is there is a type of racing where people release toy rubber ducks into rivers or canals and then catch them, and people kept confusing our logo with that type of event.
To the right is a logo I have always liked.
One place you could us it, is hand paint it on the starboard stern of your boat and paint your hull number underneath it so when trailering your boat on the freeway, others can see our website and get involved too.
Specs: Handicap Rating: PDRacer, All Rigs PDR D-PN: [140.0] (for more information, see USSailing.org) LOA: Average boat built to 8' long, however 7'9" LOA is class legal, see rules for further explanation LWL: 7'6" Beam: Minimum of 4' Hull Height: Suggested size is 18", however only a minimum of 10" required, some are built as high as 24" Sail Area: 50-80 sqft is easily to handle Weight: 40 lbs for Luaune built hull, 65 lbs for 1/4" BC Pine, 100 lbs with airboxes & 3/8" bottom Capacity: Hull shape carries 630 lbs (that is when both transoms touch water) Theoretical Hull Speed: 4.2 mph (3.7 kts) (Hullspeed in kts = SqRt(LWL) X 1.34) Actual Sailing Speed: Average speed around 3 mph [click here] Rowing Speed: 2.5 mph at an easy to pull effort [click here] 2.5 hp Motoring speed: 4.3 kts [click here]
Donation
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You can make a donation through Paypal.com to shorty@shortypen.com or using the following button:
The photo at the top of the page is the start of the first Puddle Duck race ever.
The green and white boat is Doug Day's boat "DUB", and is the first PDRacer built.
Doug crossed the start line just ahead of Ken Abrahams's boat "Ugly Duckling", which is the brown boat in the foreground with the duck painted on the side of it.
If you look just forward of Ken's sail, you can see in the distance a white chlorox bottle.
Wayne Yeargain was in the committee / safety boat and took this photo.
Why should you build one?