PDQ OWNERS FORUM

Actually, everything eepstein wrote rang true. My boat was a 27' Stiletto and only 1250 pounds, so the actual effort was different, but scaled-up his comments made sense.

* Pressure had to be off the board to move it... and that was a much smaller boat!
* Sailing around the anchor was true. Actually, the best answer was lifting both the rudders and board.
* Steering is probably boat and course specific. However, yes, if it was blowing hard you were much more stable with 50% board.
* We had a special tapered board we drove in to stop the slapping at night or motoring.
* Docking in across-current with the boards down was bad.

Yet, for a light performance boat it was worth the trouble; that was a 20-knot boat. On my PDQ, I am very happy with the mini keels.

One thing eepstein did not mention was groundings. On the PDQ, you hit mud, you back off. On the Stiletto you hit something with the board down, it snaps. One answer is a centerboard, like the Geminis, but that brings new maintenance and space problems. In my experience (and handycap numbers too) the boards don't really bring the Gemini more speed around the course, just shallower draft.

Eric,
Thank you for the input. I appreciate all you said. I have a trailerable monohull right now. I have to raise the swing keel to keep it from banging about at anchor too. We are considering a PDQ 36. This forum helps a lot.
Greg

I highly recommend the PDQ 36. We enjoy the boat in every aspect and it has been great fun! It's the first time in 25 years that I look at sailing magazines and don't think "What's the next boat".

The forum is great support and adds to the experience.

Eric

I have to confess that one of my favorite things about the PDQ 36 is the twin engines. Of course, they are most useful when maneuvering in tight quarters in a marina, but its also nice to know I can power against a headwind and chop whenever needed, and still make 7 knots in a calm. Perhaps I've gone over to the Dark Side - certainly in my youth I never guessed I would power as much as I sailed.

I had a "twin engine failure" on my new boat delivery. Halfway across Lake Ontario with mast down and 25Kt following wind and 8 foot seas both anti-siphon valves clogged. Up until that point we had done 50 miles in 6 hours surfing down the waves, but I spent the rest of the day going from engine to engine pumping the manual fuel pump lever to keep at least one engine running at low RPM. We removed the valves in Oswego, but I can't recommend this as we flooded once with diesel from a hose leak. Certainly the valves are required on a gas fuel tank, but I would advise having spares in your kit.