PDRacer Sailboat

Storing your PDRacer
Now that you have spent all this time building your boat and racing it, where the heck are you going to keep it?

Basic Care
If stored outside, do it upside down, so the water runs off it, and the underside stays dry, or dries quickly. Standing water inside your boat is the biggest danger of creating rot.

Keep it off the ground !!! If left on the ground, the bacteria that grows in the dirt will infest your boat and cause cancerous rot. You can use a couple of blocks or saw horses to keep your hull off the ground.

Covering will help extend it's life, the cover or tarp should be suspended above it so that air can flow between and it will be dry after it rains. If you lay a tarp on it, the water will collect between the tarp and the boat and continue to be wet between them, and help develop rot.

A buddy of mine has a boat built from BC plywood, titebond II glue, and latex exterior house paint (no epoxy, no tarp). That boat has been left outside, upside down on saw horses since the day it emerged from being built. 6 years and it is still in great condition, needs another coat of paint, but that really is just cosmetic. Another friend has a plywood boat that he had a tarp on, the tarp leaked, the cockpit filled with water without it being seen, and after a month like this, the boat was completely ruined. Goes to show that simple care can make your boat last a long time.

On the side, in the garage
One of those super neat hidden features of a flat sided boat, you can put them on their side and they are very stable. Only takes up a small space in the garage, and it is super easy to lay it down on the floor and slide on & off the trailer.

Takes just a minute or two to slide my other boat off the trailer into the yard, and then by changing a single bunk, my trailer converts to hold the pdracer.

Stand Upright In Corner
Joe Holtz keeps his PDRacer #28 standing upright near the front of his garage. Notice the blocks on the ground, they protect the gudgeons from being bent up while it is standing there.

Hard Cover
I made a hard cover from a piece of 1/8" paneling that my neighbor threw in the trash. I cut the cross beams under it with a little curvature to stiffen it up a bit. It works pretty good, when I am done sailing, I just put the cover on top of the boat and I am done.

Here is another example, this bolger brick didn't make it thru it's first winter due to poor care. The chine wasn't sealed, she was stored on her side like this, snow sat on her side then melted, soaking water into the edges, then it froze (with the water in the edges of the ply) and thawed a couple of times. After a long winter of freeze / thaw cycles, the plywood fell apart. Notice the nails are still in the chine, and pieces of ply are still glued to the chine. It was the water and the freezing that broke it apart.

Even with this scenario, you could still pull the nails out, cut the bottom off, sand it down and install a new bottom, so it wouldn't be a total loss.

Ceiling Of Your Garage
You can even store your PDRacer on the celing of the garage. I have heard that one guy can drive into his garage, hook the hoist straps to his boat and pull it right off the top of his car to it's regular storage place.

Or like the boat in this picture, use a cartop dolly to wheel the boat to where you will hoist it up.

Shelf Unit
Stand it upright in your garage or living room, put some shelves in it and presto, you have a working piece of furniture.

Kid's Bed
You have all seen the race car beds, why not a pdracer sailboat bed? With a little creative building, a single mattress will fit right in there.

Home