Thread: New OZ PDR in Florida

I would choose that one too. The interior and the interior trim will look very nice against it if varnished. The dark grey would work well too.

MIK

The weather in Florida has not been very accommodating for resin lay up. When it finally gets warm enough, I only have about 2 hours to get changed when I come home from work and get everything mixed up and applied.
Yesterday it started raining as I was applying a layer. Hooray for garages! I've been going out and hitting it with a hair dryer hoping to coax it to dry...

It's probably best the let the resin cure at its own rate--and it WILL cure if mixed approximately right. If you feel you must speed things up use a faster hardener.

I've settled on medium for everything but very large areas for which I use slow. Two days ago I glued in some critical cleats but, due to our cold temps I left the clamps on until this morning. There's always something else to work on when you're waiting for the 'pox to cure.

You can't hurry love.

Originally Posted by MiddleAgesMan

There's always something else to work on when you're waiting for the 'pox to cure.

So true but in my mind I had a few more steps that involved the interior of the boat.

Looks like I have to skip them for now and start on the sail.
I'm also waiting for some new accessories from Duckworks to arrive!

My cousin in Florida has said the iguanas are falling out of the trees because of the cold.

Wonder if they shatter on hitting hte ground.

Doesn't sound like Florida at all!

MIK

Makes me think of Drop Bears... LOL.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vqq9XUZhJ4"]YouTube - Frozen Iguanas Falling From Trees in FL !!![/ame]

It has definitely been unseasonably cold here. No Iguanas have fallen in my yard but for the most part it only gets below freezing for an hour or two a day on the coldest days anyway.

For those who have never been to Florida, I usually run my air conditioning 10 months out of the year. Having the heat on for this long is a huge change. In addition, I'm tired of wearing the same 5 sweaters!

My thinking as of late has been, "If I put on my flip flops when I leave home it WILL warm up right?"

Originally Posted by nickpullen

Makes me think of Drop Bears... LOL.

Hey Nick, maybe you could find a video somewhere of our infamous Drop Bears for the benefit of our international friends?

There is almost no footage of real drop bears. They operate by stealth taking out the last person in the group walking through the bush.

You can see some pics of the results of an attack only.

There is only one piece of footage of the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine - marsupial and not a feline) and none of the dropbear that I know of apart from some from beer commercials.

MIK

Ok it's warmed up for a few days and I put the boat outside in the sun to finish curing the resin. Worked like a charm.

I spent most of the last few days making my sail.

WARNING: This is a sail I designed specifically for my setup. If it sucks or otherwise blows up in my face I'll take the responsiblity for messing up a sure thing. Stick with Mik's plans for the best results.

Making it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be and most of the time was spent in the design phase. It's a 5.4m sail which is good for the windsurfing mast that I have and fits neatly inside the aluminum boom length of 8 ft. The reinforcement patches at the head, tack and clew were challenging for the sewing machine since there was so much material to go through. I only jammed the machine a couple times so I feel good about it. Also, I'm not very good at sewing but, like my woodworking skills, I know what will hold even it if looks ugly.
The center of effort is 100mm in front of the centerboard so I'll have a little lee helm if the mast is perfectly straight. (Which it never is.) However, this is a pretty flexible mast and once I get the cleats set on the foredeck I'll probably be able to introduce some rake to move the CE aft.

Don't get too far from shore with an offshore wind if you have the Centre of the sail that far forward - you might not be able to sail back!

Have a look at the rigging photos to see all the detailing that is important to get the sail to work well - just doing some of the ropes in a different way to maintain the sail shape.



The left is wrong.

PDRacer Rigging Guide - a set on Flickr

Best wishes
Michael

I've been pretty religious about visiting your Flickr page at every point in this build. It's very, very informative!

Originally Posted by paulwjax

If it sucks or otherwise blows up in my face I'll take the responsiblity for messing up a sure thing. Stick with Mik's plans for the best results.

.

Here's me sticking my foot in my mouth and pleading forgiveness.

So I rigged up the boat in the back yard today and looked at relation to the center of effort on the sail and the centerboard. I could get the CE over the centerboard since the windsurfing mast is pretty bendy. The sail also seems to fill out pretty well in the breeze but the leech is a little too loose for my tastes no matter how I trim the rig. I'll sail it one time just for fun but I'm going to build the mast and boom in the plans and use them instead of mine. (Like I should have done in the first place.)
It was a good and inexpensive learning experience (I'm out one polytarp and took a nice blow to my pride) and I definitely understand the relationship of all the points in the boat now which should help me as a sailor in the long run.


So Mik, is there any way I could convince you to send me the lug rig sail plan? That way I can cut and sew it while I'm waiting on the mast to dry...

Today was the last of 16 days in a row that I worked and somehow I managed to catch a cold. Despite the lovely head cold I went to buy the wood for my mast this morning. I got home and created the scarf joints and glued everything together and went to work excited that I could have a mast built in the next day or so.

On my way home I stopped by the grocery store to buy some odds and ends so I could hunker down in the house with the boat and the mast and just get better. Somewhere in the dairy section it hit me, I only bought and glued enough wood for 2 sides of the mast. So now I have make another trip to buy lumber and scarf the joints, AGAIN.

This is why you shouldn't do anything when you're sick!