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18" Stern Airbox, 12" Bow Airbox
Airboxes on the ends is a very common method of providing emergency floatation with homemade plywood boats. Bulkheads are very easy to install, they are cheap, light, and can provide a large amount of floatation space which doubles as dry storage space. Hatches are preferred to be along the center of the boat so that when the boat is on it's side, the hatch is still out of the water. You can make your own hatches, or a very simple alternative is to use the rim and lid from buckets and other containers.

With the boat on it's side, you can see how high it floats.

To get it back upright, you can start at the bow and walk your hands along the gunnel till the boat comes back upright. Another option would be to toss a line over the middle and pull on that instead.

As the boat comes upright, you can see how much extra water is scooped into the boat. If the mast was removed, it would be much easier to right, and much less water would come inside.

Climbing over the stern was more challenging than you would think. At this point, I had pulled the boat out into water deep enough that I could not touch the bottom. A step of some sorts is definitely needed, I used a line tied between the two stern cleats to make a single step, and it worked good.

With all the water inside the boat, it became very unstable. On a couple of previous attempts, the boat re-capsized.

Back aboard a boat half filled with water, I bailed with a chlorox bottle that had the bottom cut out to form a scoop. I have timed myself before with a bailer like this, and it can bail 30 gallons per minute. It took me 4 minutes to bail the water out of the boat.

The 18" stern, and 12" bow airboxes seem to be the minimum amount of floatation that the PDRacer should have to make it self rescuable.

On another attempt, I tried to board over the bow airbox, but because of the water inside the hull, and the mast with water soaked sail, it was just too unstable. Possibly if I removed the mast, I could have climbed aboard over the bow.


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