OZ Racer plan information The PDRacers have a saga published at Duckworks about the Texas 200 (the 200 mile sailing event up the Texas Coast). It is not by a Ducker but by one impressed by them. Extract The Mighty Ducks clung to the port, with all manner and various sort of other craft abeam [...]

Peter Hyndman has made some PDRacer wallpapers that you can download for your iPhone and some other devices.

This talk is the first hour of my exposition on boat building and design. There are two more parts to come. This covers some of the background and design issues. The second is more on the building side and the last is a bit more about why the Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boat tradition is different from the Northern Hemisphere.

You can stream the talks over your internet connection or download them as a podcast.

The pics in this post are just a hint – many more on flickr – you can see them at the bottom of this page. So … What a Weekend! It is the highest I have ever sailed by far – about 2500 to 3000ft above sea level. A very nice bunch of folks. And [...]

From Rick The Canadian Nationals took place today at Summerland B.C.  with 7 boats competing for the coveted title of ‘Canadian Champion’. Pictures are posted. We had a beach start over a triangular course that was 4.2 kms long, and, well, I won. A testiment to the fine design of Michael Storer. Canadian National Puddle [...]

The PDRacer international forum started discussing a longer version of the humble PDRacer – and I had some drawings on hand already for a 12ft version because of Bob Alston. He actually thought up the name, which I quite like. We really do recommend the OZ PDRacer for most people and you do need to [...]

It is a bit hard finding information on my forum as the list is not very ordered, so I have attempted to fix this.There is a general building section then each boat is in alphabetical order.To see all the images you may need to become a member, however, they are a good bunch and will [...]

Howdy, Towing behind another boat can be one of the highest loads that a small dinghy can face. Imagine if it fills with water and the mother ship is surging ahead in bad weather. So how to distribute the load into a lightweight skinned structure like the OZ PDR. OK … here is how. It [...]

A new local (Adelaide) PDRacer has been on its way for a few months now and is getting very close to being ready. The picture right is what it looked like a few weeks ago. however things have changed. You can click on the pic for a closer look Mike wrote: Bit more progress this [...]

There has been a fantastic discussion about some of the racing possibilities of balance lug rigs on my forum I have learned a huge amount from sailing my BETH sailing canoe and the Goat Island Skiffs over the years, but recently ran into Brian who uses a lug rig for racing traditional British boats. So [...]

Just got an email from Dan Taylor in Washington State, USA. He is the first to provide pics of the OZ PDR with the lug rig option. The sail looks very nice indeed and the light wind and a perfect sunny day were the other necessary ingredients. Here are his email and the pictures – [...]

The OZ hollow mast is the bee’s knees – the nicest mast we can come up with at this stage. A simple long box with the faces made of 4 planks 12mm (1/2″) thick with a taper. Easy enough to build about 35% to 40% lighter than a solid mast. Making the mast out of [...]

I’ll admit it – I am a luddite. I really think that racing boats have lost the plot – so I focus very much on simple affordable boats that go fast – rather than the flashy state of the art. I keep an eye on the State of the Art for anything that is useful [...]

I like boat trailers that have other functions too. One way is to adapt another type of trailer – like a conventional box trailer at least for smaller boats. An alternative is to go for something very “bare bones”. One thing that makes a boat trailer more useful for different boats is to have a [...]

I was going to put more pictures up here but decided not to. The story is much too good to make a short version valid. In a way it is nothing special – just a family building three little boats – but I think there IS something special. The Story is here with all the [...]

The first part was up last week. This week we talk about traditional vs modern sailtypes – everyone knows I am a fan of trad rigs because of their low cost – but here I go into the influences on the other side. I love the efficiency of modern rigs so I use all the [...]

Now we haven’t had a huge amount of luck with our PDRacer days in South Australia. While I did make a new PDRacer speed record, the conditions were mostly too strong at the Goolwa wooden boat show. However there are a couple of opportunities to see (and possibly sail) an OZ PDR if you are [...]

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 [...]