After doing some homework and stuffing my face with delicious burritos, I decided it was time to get working on the PD Racer. Partly because my eyes were ready to fall out of my head from staring at the computer for so long. And partly because it’s beautiful sailing weather, and I’m still in the middle of repairs.

Let’s finish them!

First order of business was shaping the new leeboard. When I last left it, it was two pieces of 1/4″ ply glued together. Supposedly, you can actually sail like that, but it’ll create quite a bit of turbulence. Turbulence makes the boat ride poorly, and is therefore unacceptable. Block plane to the rescue!

The glued ply, with the lead corner trimmed.

Since the top 20″ sit above the waterline, only the lower part of the board needed to shaped.

Starting to see the layers of ply during the shaping.

It looks much better than this after much sanding. Also, my hope is that the epoxy/fiber will cover much of my poor woodworking skills.

After getting the board shaped, it was time to unbox the fiberglass. I ordered 10 yards of it, because I thought it would be wise to have extra on hand. Also I heard to try to buy your cloth on rolls, if at all possible. The place I bought this from comes that way without an extra charge if you order 10 yards… “Two birds with one stone!” says I.

It’s 51″ wide. That’s two inches wider than the hull of the duck. Brilliant!

Oooh! So fibery!

One side of the new board with glass, and a straight epoxy coat to the old one.

I would have liked to take more pics as I was working on the glassing. However you need to work fairly quick, and my (gloved) hands were gross with epoxy. I’m trying to keep my cameras at least mostly nice.