PDR newbie introduction and questions - TEXAS!
Hello all. A while back I seem to have caught the sailing bug after taking a basic keelboat class. I could tell because I immediately came home and did cruel and unusual things to my kayak and tried to sail it. When that worked(sortof) I started showing symptoms of gotta-build-a-boat syndrome.
I've never heard of a cure for this disease, so I figure I might as well try to infect the kids with it so I have someone to share my misery with. The PD looks like it might be easy enough for me to build, and looks like it would be great for the kids (no, really, it's for the kids! You believe me right?). I've been reading the PDR websites and forums trying to do my homework, and I bought the plans for the OZ PDRacer.
Warning: Possible silly questions to follow. While I can usually tell the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver, I'm mostly clueless about both sailing and woodworking. Also, I always try to do a search before asking in case anyone else has already asked the same thing, but the search thingy is not cooperating with me at the moment so I apologize for any silly/repeated questions. So...
1. Thinking optimistically, if I can spend a substantial amount of time working on it daily, roughly how long might it take a newbie like me to build a PD?
2. Also keeping my newbie-ness in mind, I'm wondering whether it would be better to splurge on decent materials (lumber, epoxy, etc.) in the first place or if it might be better to go really cheap first time around and build a "learner" boat to practice on first. Any opinions/experiences about this would be most appreciated.
3. Last question just for curiosity: I'm in the U.S., specifically the Gulf Coast area of Texas. Any neighbors on here by chance?
Any other advice about must know or must read stuff is appreciated as well.