Thread: Building the OZ PD Racer - now renamed the OzRacer

Hi Midge
I have been summoning up the courage to start work on my OZRacer for over 18 months now. I know the plans are simple but then ... so am I and not very confident. I went to price plywood and had a lot of trouble sourcing 1220 X 2440 sheets. I ended up looking at some stuff called pink marine ply.

I know the plans are drawn to use imperial measurements but is there any move to draw one that uses metric? All their quality Australian plywoods are metric 1200 X 2400.

Also given that the craft is of composite construction does it need to be marine ply?

I looked up the search function before posting and nothing came up.
Any help you can give will be appreciated.

Peter

Originally Posted by pajeronj

Hi Midge
I have been summoning up the courage to start work on my OZRacer for over 18 months now. I know the plans are simple but then ... so am I and not very confident. I went to price plywood and had a lot of trouble sourcing 1220 X 2440 sheets. I ended up looking at some stuff called pink marine ply.

I know the plans are drawn to use imperial measurements but is there any move to draw one that uses metric? All their quality Australian plywoods are metric 1200 X 2400.

Also given that the craft is of composite construction does it need to be marine ply?

I looked up the search function before posting and nothing came up.
Any help you can give will be appreciated.

Peter

Pink Marine ply is definitely OK, it would likely be Meranti.

Col

Thanks Col

I might get to see the PDR finished , and in use !.
I've always wanted to hand it over to the grandkids , and now 3 of the most likely to sail are moving to 400metres from what look to be perfect waters , to sail a PDR .
Dunno how I'm going to do it , my old mate Arthur is giving me a hard time , but gee , it would be good to see those kids ripping around in her !.
Rob J.

I've just put up some nice CAD drawings by Benjamin Shaw that show the structure of the Oz Goose - the much faster 12ft version of the OzRacer/OzPDR on the Opengoose.com website.

Useful drawings for builders – CAD model of Oz Goose |

They will be useful to many people building boats of any type as they show how minimal the framing is when the boat is designed for the plywood to take all the primary loads. Epoxy filleting is also possible where timber is expensive and speeds up the building process further.

It clearly shows the construction of the Goose and is very relevant to the OzRacer RV (which was the second model of the OzPDR).



It goes through the actual building of the goose.

The website also has some great tips for rigging boats using few fittings ... we just can't get them in the Philippines where we have over 30 Oz Geese sailing and racing.



And bunch more explanation etc on
Useful drawings for builders – CAD model of Oz Goose |

Best Wishes to all
MIK

Here are a couple of images of the larger 12ft goose building and sailing in the Philippines.



We have done three of these group builds, volunteers put together the flat pack kits over a week and then the family, corporate and community groups come and do the actual assembly in three days. Our aim is to get the boats together in three days.





With some sponsorship from Plywood epoxy manufacturers and importers we can build 10 Oz Goose sailboats for the price of importing one Laser with some spares. That is 10 to 30 people sailing as the Oz Goose sails well with three adults aboard for sail training.

Oz Goose website is here. http://opengoose.com

And the most visited article is about low cost rigging - because imported boat bits are way out of middle class Filipino's budget. But that doesn't mean the boats need to be slouches. We use spectra rope imported cheap from China to replace many fittings as well for the higher loaded rigging. Add a mainsheet and three blocks/pulleys, rudder fittings, a horn cleat to tie the halyard off to ... and that is about it.
Details here Rigging details for the Oz Goose sailboat – and other lug rigged sailboats |

Best wishes
MIK