AlexN’s wonderful description of building a OzRacer and some thoughts

The OzRacer is the first boat he has built and Alex is not necessarily taking the quickest way – But he is reporting daily about his building and his ruminations on different subjects.

It is a very popular boatbuilding item on the OZ woodwork forum. There have been around 13000 views of his thread already and it is jumping by a couple of thousand each week.

Says Alex:

I recently acquired a set of plans for the Mk 2 OZ PDR and the GIS from Duck Flat. To get onto the water as quickly as possible, and allow saving up for the Goat, I decided to build the Duck first.

Michael has very kindly offered to move some related posts that I’ve made elsewhere into this (more relevant) thread, but as a quick summary (from memory), the following things have – or haven’t – occurred to date:

Probably asked Michael far too many questions, as many of his answers were right there on his and BitingMidge’s sites already;

Rang up a lot of Sydney plywood merchants in attempt to find a marine plywood that isn’t too heavy *and* that I can afford;
Rang up a number of timber merchants in Sydney re “affordable” clear oregon or wrc – it seems that there really isn’t, nor hoop pine neiver;
Costs for even such a simple boat as the Duck appear to have almost doubled in two years, even accounting for changes in materials – ouch!;
Changed expectations of cost to be more realistic, revised building starting time estimates;
Found some useful oregon in my wood cache;
Discovered (quite coincidentally – no, really!) that some simple alterations in our house will also “liberate” a large amount of secret-nailed WRC cladding boards, many over 2.1 m in length and knot-free :);
Acquired a bundle of excellent milled-to-size Paulownia timber at a good price, thanks to a suggestion from Nick Pullen;
Will make two rigs: the standard sprit boom and the lug, starting with lug;
Mistake when ordering Paulownia – overlooked inclusion of timber to make up standard mast: oops!
Bacon saved by Michael: suggested glassing the mast to make up the difference in density (stiffness) between paulownia and oregon, plus increase length of long internal block slightly …

And that’s how it starts out.

Alex has an Aeromodelling background and his idea of tolerances has blown the rest of us away. He is working to less than a millimetre, whereas most of us are happy with about 6! Lots of discussion about tools too, even though you don’t necessarily need many for a PDR or a Goat Island Skiff for that matter.

Please don’t get the idea I am being critical … Alex is building the boat the way that gives him satisfaction – and you can hear it in his posts.

Launch Day – over a year later a day of satisfaction.

Info on the OZ Racer sailboat Plan ($40 and abundantly detailed)