It is a long weekend here and I have finally commited some time to developing up a boat that builds on the lessons from the PDRacer.
We have seen three PDRacers sail 200 miles along the Texas coast fover an 5 day period and this prompted the discussion about what the lessons were.
For the PDRacer class it means that this humble little boat is capable if it is in the right hands.
But the downside is while the PDR turns something like this into a real adventure with 8 hours a day on the water (in comparison for the hobiecat in the event which would have spent two hours a day between campsites) would there be a better way for the solo sailor to go a bit faster (just under 16ft, 4.8m) in something not toooo much more complex.
So we started discussing a solo RAID or Expedition boat.
The point is NOT to be the winner in an event (for example it is not highly optimised for rowing, but to take the simplicity of the PDRacer building technology and gear it to a boat that is faster on the water, and maybe appeals more to prejudices about what a boat SHOULD look like and will be able to deal with truly adverse conditions a bit more easily.
I am highly aware that they are prejudices (pre judgements) and love the way the PDR makes people scratch their heads as they wonder how such a funny box can sail so well. That is one of the reasons I love the class.
Anyway the discussion about the 16ft Solo RAID Expedition boat -currently called the RAID41 (a bit of a joke name by the way – see if you can work it out) has meant that I have moved into design mode to produce this plan.
It might be some time. And the initial idea is that it will be a plan for someone who either has built an OZ PDR or who can understand enough about boatbuilding to extrapolate from the detail of the OZ PDR plans. It is still the same boxy cross section, will use the same mast centreboard and rudder blades … but draws a bit from both BETH and the GIS.
It will not have the same “cheap” element as the PDRacer as I wanted to put a raised floor in so that there would be somewhere dry-ish to sleep and the boat would completely self bail after being righted from capsize.
See how it goes. No promises!
