56 replies to this topic

[Howard]

Having ordered and taken delivery of some 40 plus sheets of plywood, I have crossed the point of no return and have begun the process of building a Princess 26. It's been a long time in the works, going back some 5 or 6 years. Got sidetracked by the notion of a bigger boat in the range of 28 feet, but have since settled on the 26. Once the plans were ordered and studied, it quickly became obvious this was all the boat I had any business trying to tackle.

 

At some point, I intend to develop a website to document the build and the boat, but for now, will update things here.

 

Attached graphics show my vision of a basic basic layout and sailplan. Those are all subject to change as things progress, but I figure it will be good to start with a plan, vs. make it up as I go along.

 

This will be the hard chine version, built from plywood and pretty much to design specs. About the only change is to the interior layout, swapping the galley from port to starboard and losing a berth in the process. I primarily sail alone so figured I'd build out a nicer galley and interior vs. more places to sleep.

 

I intend to use her as a long distance coastal cruiser and if you live on navigable waters on the east coast, someday she may be coming to a dock near you!

Attached Files

•  p26-1d.jpg   191.88K   147 downloads
•  P26 Sail Plan.jpg   47.91K   140 downloads

[PeterP]

Best of luck Howard!

[Hirilonde]

About the only change is to the interior layout, swapping the galley from port to starboard and losing a berth in the process. 

 

When the Pearson Triton (28') came out in 1960 it had 4 berths as the sales people suggested.  Carl Alberg, the designer called the sales people prostitutes.  His claim was that a 28 foot boat can only comfortably cruise 2 people.  It might be amusing to take 4 people on a weekend trip, but I think you will find that for anything more 2 is plenty. The added conveniences you can build in by sacrificing that berth will prove far more important than the capacity to cruise more people uncomfortably.  My starboard salon settee/berth on my Renegade converts into a table and 2 seats.  I dropped the table down once in the 6 years I have had her in the water.

 

Have fun, I will look for your pictures.

[Howard]

Yes, I had a number of criteria I was looking for, but 4 berths was not one of them. Actually, it would sleep 4 as shown, using the cabin sole inside or two more in the cockpit under an awning. It has that many flat spots, but that is never going to happen. With a small galley and one sitting toilet, three flat spots is plenty.

 

What I have yet to devise is an interior table and comfortable sitting chair. Have a few options for those.

 

We all have our wants, needs and biases. Having spent the last several years sailing a 17 footer with small cabin that does not have a head (beyond a porta-potti) or even sitting head room, a boat of this size, to me, will be a luxury.

 

But as for those design criteria, there were a number of objections I had to overcome. Most, it turns out, were unfounded. The rest can either be overcome or lived with.

[Brent]

Congratulations on getting underway. You have already done the most difficult thing: getting started. From here on out it is just a matter of finishing up.

I look forward to following along.

[Howard]

Congratulations on getting underway. You have already done the most difficult thing: getting started. From here on out it is just a matter of finishing up.

I look forward to following along.

 

Brent:

 

Speaking of following along, it is not lost on my that I will be following along in your wake. While the materials may be a bit different, process will be about the same. Having an experienced builder to follow and learn from was a factor in deciding to pull the trigger. Hope to share thoughts and ideas along the way.

 

The other one was Wayne from New Zealand. Seeing the pictures of his nearly finished boat was a big help, and he proved that as long as you don't go too crazy, you can make a few modifications and have things work out fine. We have not heard much from him lately, but would love to find out if he has floated her yet and how she turned out.........and just as important.......what he might do different.  Judging from my plan numbers, there have been 20 some sets of plans sold, but Wayne's boat is the only one I can recall that was ever built.

[Scott Dunsworth]

Brent and Howard I really like this design, I would have built one myself if it wasn't for two parts of the design. I wanted a fairly shallow draft fixed keel and standing headroom from one end of the cabin to the other. But other than that it probably would have met my needs. Its one of Grahams prettiest sail designs, also very practical.

So keep up the good work both of you.

 

I have always thought if Graham would design a Belhaven in a 26 it would be a good design. It would have standing head room. Also with twin belge keels fairly shallow draft. I know Graham isnt to crazy about twin keels but there are a lot of up sides to them also.

The Princess is a nice salty looking boat and the Belhaven has a more modern look. I was very surprised to find out at the mess about that the Belhaven actualy has more head room then the P22. So I'm sure our designer could get standing headroom in a B26.

 

Looking forward to up dates on both of your builds.

 

Scott

[Hirilonde]

Also with twin belge keels fairly shallow draft. I know Graham isnt to crazy about twin keels but there are a lot of up sides to them also.

 

I can't think of any up side that is worth the price in sailing ability.  Everyone draws the line between compromises in a different place.   Graham designs boats that sail well first, then tries to make them comfortable and accomodating.   I think this is how it should be.

[Howard]

Scott:

 

Most, if not all, of the reason why I delayed so long in getting started on a 26 was my desire to get standing headroom, which in my case, would be 6 feet. I have a sketch of the 26, stretched to 28, and it does open the boat up a lot, but even at that, headroom was only going to be 5'9". Better than 5', but still a compromise if the goal was 6'. Seems to me like we had to go up to 30 feet or more to get that full 6' of headroom in this design. Interesting that in a number of other, shallow draft, sharpie type boats, you had to go up to the 40 foot plus range to get there. In full keel boats of this size, many do have the headroom, but only get there by building the sole down into the keel, such that you walk through a funnel and stand on a narrow plank on the cabin sole.

 

So in the end, once I concluded that I could live with 5' of headroom, most of my objections went away. In all other aspects, it would have been the same boat, only bigger, which also means more expensive and more difficult to build. I don't know if 26 feet was picked at random, but that size is a good fit to common materials, and makes economic use of plywood sheets and can utilize smaller scantlings for just about everything. Going to 28 feet would not have doubled my cost, but would have been significantly higher.

 

I've lived with a small ballasted centerboard boat for nearly 12 years. Given a choice of the benefits of shallow draft and a fixed keel, I would (did) chose the shallow draft. I've always thought it amusing to see the bigger keel boats with 5' of draft or more listed as "shoal draft" boats. I think those are the ones I've seen motoring through the narrow marked channels so as to not run aground (or the one's hailing Sea Tow because they did run aground). They are also the ones forced to anchor in the crowded, deep water anchorages. I've been able to motor past them to the shallower areas that are more protected.......from the wind and boats that start dragging anchors when the wind pipes up in the middle of the night.

 

As for the 5' of headroom, there are tons of well regarded boats that do not have even that, including my current boat. What it does have is standing headroom in the companionway and in my layout, I tried to cluster as much as possible in those 4 or 5 square feet under the open hatch. The galley is there and for a single hander, a person could eat simple meals off the bridge deck.

 

I also think I'll be able to trailer this boat with my Tundra pickup.

 

One of my few remaining issues is with the outboard motor. Not the motor as much as it's location. As designed, it situated in the aft end of the cockpit, centered in a well and lifts vertically with a tackle arrangement. I don't mind the outboard.......it's what I know and have come to prefer. It is darned handy to have right there in the cockpit where you can get to the controls, including the motor tiller. That means a boat that is highly maneuverable and will likely spin around in not much more than it's own length. Compared to a diesel, it will be cheaper, lighter, and easier to maintain and when underway, the prop can be lifted to eliminate the drag, plus that control issue. The primary downside is I would much prefer to see it tilt on it's own bracket, vs. riding a car up and down, but there isn't enough room between the aft cockpit bulkhead and the transom to get the prop to clear. I noticed that Wayne offset his and let the prop and skeg raise through a slot in the transom. Another option may be to offset it slightly to starboard and cut a slot in the aft cockpit bulkhead to move it forward enough for the tip of the skeg to clear the transom. That has the extra benefit of moving the motor controls over the centerline. I don't know if it makes any difference to have the prop wash on the centerline or slightly offset. My current boat has motor mount in a cutout of the transom itself and the prop and rudder run side by side. It causes no problems at all. Anyway, this is to all be decided and whatever the outcome, will be something I can live with.

 

Anyway, that was all part of my thought process. Time to get going on it (which to some degree, I have). Outside of cutting out some parts, not much is going to happen around here until the weather warms up.

[Scott Dunsworth]

Originally I was having Graham design my 28 with an outboard well. My plan was to have a 25 or 30 in there to run all the river systems to get to the Gulf and for all other reasons you have. One big one was the ability to remove the outboard completely for maintenance or major breakdown issues, which would be rare with the reliability of modern outboards.

The only real down side for me was the lack of a real alternator. If we will be living on this boat for 4 to 6 months a year I needed a real charging system. Then Graham found me this Beta 20 with a 60 amp alternator and only 160 hours on the diesel. So we promptly switched over to the Beta from the outboard. Another plus to the Beta is economic. The very helpful folks at Beta told me the 20 should push my 28 at hull speed with a fuel consumption of a half a gallon an hour. That works out to around 14 mpg.

As for standing headroom it is a make or break deal for my wife and I. We neither have good backs and to live on a small craft that long without standing headroom would doom my dreams of winters in Florida.

The 28 Graham is designing for me has 6'1" headroom. Her beam is just 2 inches short of 10 feet and she has a slightly higher free-board. With the wider beam this allows for the headroom down the center line to be quite wide.

The draft is planned at 4 feet which is pretty good for a keel boat, the keel is 108 inch's long at the hull and about 90 inch's at the foot. So I wont be able to get to a lot of places but if careful we will be able to get just about anywhere we want to go. If I remember correctly she has an displacement of 8900 lbs. She also carries quite a bit more sail than most 28's. When I asked him to design this 28 I asked for safety and comfort first, then performance second. But anything Graham designs won't be a dog I'm sure.

Other than the transom my sail plan of the boat looks very similar to the P26 and a lot like the Peters P28, my cabin comes all the way back to the mizzen tabernacle.

I'll email Graham and see if he will post my sail plan on my 28 thread. I have it on paper but don't know how to get it to the forum.

 

Most of all the differences comes down to personal preferences and intended uses. One thing we both have going for us is a designer that can make it happen in a nice looking, safe package.

[Howard]

Time has been tight lately, but I sneak in a bit now and then. This job seems to be done way out of sequence, but had to be done sometime and this is something I can do indoors when the weather is cold.

 

Anyway, this is a pattern for the external keel, which will be shaped as one piece, then split apart. Top half is a couple layers of 2X structural dead wood that will stay on the boat. Bottom half is 3 3/4" deep and gets shaped with the whole, but is then split apart and used to create a mold for the lead keel, which plans say is 750 pounds. Still exploring options for finding that much lead, which is getting expensive.

 

Have considered two options on how to do this. One being to laminate up the whole keel, then cut out the foil shape on a bandsaw. The other is to use this pattern cut out each layer with a circular saw, then glue them up and final shape them. I'm leaning towards the second option, as to do the whole keel......almost 7 inches deep and over 11 feet long.......would require horsing that whole thing to a bandsaw and doing a good job pushing it through. I think I'll be able to do a reasonable job final shaping a stack of pre-cut laminations with plane and a belt sander. Only trick will be keeping them lined up during when being glued and I can do that with a few dowel rods.

 

As for the sequencing, one reason I'm pushing this along is I'd like to get the mold for the lead pour made as soon as possible, then let it sit for as long as possible........preferably through some summer heat.........hopefully to get it dried out as much as possible. The mold is to be formed from a mix of sand and cement. I've never poured lead like this, but I hear water and molten lead make for more excitement than I want to know about.

 

 

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[Chick Ludwig]

If he still has it, I gave Graham a lead keel off of an old 25ft. ketch that I scrapped. Maybe you could cut it up and melt it for your keel.

[Howard]

Hopefully I'll find a source a bit closer.......I'm about 1,000 miles from the NC coast. One of the local options is a company that casts a variety of small items. Sounded like they had several tubs of wheel weights they wanted to get rid of. I already have enough of those to do the 50# tip of the CB, so that will make good practice. Another option was a kid my son used to work with. Rumor has it the kid moved into a place, only to find a large pile of lead ingots in the garage that he had no use for and wanted to get rid of. My guess is we would all be shocked to know what is laying around if we only knew where to look.

 

Another issue with getting the mold made is to then fill it with water to verify the exact volume (and thus weight) it's going to take to fill it. Would hate to spend all that time shaping the keel, only to come up short of filling it. A little extra would not be a problem. Too little would be a wreck. I would prefer to cast that keel only once.

[Howard]

BTW, don't know what tools others use to transfer the plan measurements to materials, but I've come to rely on a beam compass and a set of trammel points mounted on a yard stick to mark my distances from a centerline or intersecting points. As long as you have a straight base line or perfectly square perpendicular lines to work with, swinging these allow me to achieve much better symmetry than measuring any other way.

 

What I continue to struggle with is to find a suitable batten material that will throw a fair curve. The straight grained wood battens I made several years ago have developed a bow, and for something like the keel project above, are not long enough anyway. I have some round materials, such as fiberglass rods, that throw a fair curve, but the larger the diameter of those, the farther the distance of the curved edge (side of round stock) to the material being marked. Unless you can keep your pencil perfectly straight, your line will wobble. At any rate, for a project like this, there are a lot of curved lines to be drawn and you need battens that will throw a fair curve and several of them.

[Scott Dunsworth]

Howard I had two 5/8 x 5/8's battens made from some real straight grained popular that was the best I ever had. They bent easy and would make nice fair lines. I made them from 1x1's and ran them through my thickness planner till I got to the thickness desired. I have a good sources for wood locally and they where 14 feet in length, but eventually started to get small bends and twists in them after two or three years. I'll make me another set along with some shorter ones, sand and epoxy coat them to keep them stabilized. The very straight grain popular would take some amazing bends some times, but it has to be real straight grained.

 

Howard I would like to come and see your boat after you've been at it for awhile. I have stopped and seen Peter's 28 twice and am always amazed at his craftsmanship, he would show me a flaw and even after he would point it out I still couldn't see it.

 There are several builds I would love to see in progress, you and Brent's 26's, Kyles Belhaven and a few of the power boats. One of my favorite power boats would be the Outerbanks 24.

 

Scott

[Howard]

Scott:

 

Once there is actually something to look at, you can visit as often as you like. I figure its about 7 hours for a person who is mindful of speed limits and such. With any luck (on my part) you will be available for inspection about the time she is ready to turn. You might get to do more than watch!

 

I also have been to see Peter's project and it is remarkable. The type of thing you might expect from a guy who also makes fine furniture. In fact, that pretty much describes it........a big piece of fine furniture. 

[Howard]

Scott:

 

Your comment about battens reminded me of this link........which usually gets mentioned when the topic of battens comes up:

 

http://forum.woodenb...ens-For-Lofting

 

Long and thin are not very helpful as descriptive terms, which is what most people see and read about battens. BTW, how long is "a piece of string"? Much better to put some dimensions to the concept of long and thin.

 

Seeing what those experienced buildings were using was informative and a good reference.

 

Any other good ideas?

[Howard]

At this point, I think I have rounded up most of the structural lumber I will need. Again, this may seem like it is out of synch, but around these parts, if you are buying from a yard, even the kiln dried stuff is only dried to around 19% moisture content, so is going to dry and shrink some more. Best to get it out of the lumberyard stacks, dry and stable before cutting and glueing it up. No reason to build in trouble if you don't have to.

 

I have considerably more time and money invested in this than I should have at this point. I suspect that if a builder had access to good lumber locally, and was careful, he could get all the structural lumber to build this boat for under $300.  Probably safe to assume that even with premium lumber (#1 and select structural), plywood will run 10X what the structural wood will cost so a builder could plan on buying mostly premium stuff (if he can find it) and still not get beat up on cost. To put things in perspective, a new, 2 burner LP gas range will cost double what I have invested in structural lumber. No reason to pinch pennies here.

 

One seemingly simple material I need, that has been impossible to find in the Midwest, is 5/4 lumber. It is needed to laminate the keelson (two layers) and for the mast tabernacles and for the CB trunk. The only 5/4 lumber available in these parts is 5/4 MCA treated yellow pine, which has rounded corners and may not work well with epoxy. I have some samples to test and am doing some research on it. The concern I have now with MCA is the treatment is water based and may leech out, affecting the glue joint in the process. The older CCA treated lumber is simply no longer available. I'm still looking and might get lucky and find something that has been laying around in a barn for the past 10 years, but I've looked long enough to realize it's time to start considering Plan B.

 

Ideally, the keel planks would be vertical grain douglas fir or yellow pine, but neither of them are to be found in 5/4 thickness in any grain pattern. Some of the box stores may sell 5/4 yellow pine for door trim, but only in widths of 4 inches or less.  I did find some 5/4 vertical grain douglas fir stair tread material, but that was priced to me at $14 per linear foot. Since you need about 55 feet for the keel planks alone, that would bump the cost of the structural lumber way more than I wanted to see. In the end, it looked like the best, and remarkably cheapest option, was to buy premium 2X stock at 1 1/2 inches and mill it down through a surface planer. With all lumber around these parts offered as flat sawn stock, the only way to get the dimensionally stable vertical grain lumber is to buy 2 x 12 planks that were taken from the center of the log, rip down each side and toss the pith wood center, which likely as not, has a split running the length of the board, making it undesirable for construction use. Any scraps and remnants will get used for cleats and carlin stock.

 

I think I have sourced at least part of the batten material I was looking for. The planks in that photo are ancient white pine.....nearly 2" x 20" and somewhere around 16' to 18' in length and perfect straight grain. They have not moved in 10 years. I don't think they will miss a few snips off one side.

 

 

 

 

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[Hirilonde]

I can get 5/4 Alaskan Yellow Cedar, Dark Red Meranti, African Mahogany, Port Orford Cedar, Douglas Fir, and untreaded SYP.  Are none of these available?  Home Depot and Lowes must really be having their impact, soon only garbage will be available every where.  I hope the consumer learns to shop the real full service lumber yard before it is too late.

[Howard]

Not in the Midwest and we have three of the big box stores in town, along with one major full service yard and three minors.

 

Aside from 5/4 treated, the only 5/4 lumber I found was in HD. They had a small selection of western red cedar in 5/4, but almost every piece in the stack had large knots or other flaws that was not acceptable to me. Beyond that, the use for most of the dimension lumber is structural and needs to be pretty strong, which also left WRC off the list.

 

In this part of the world, lumber yard stuff is almost universally used for some type of building construction. Ask for anything but SPF or Douglas Fir and you will get a blank stare. Beyond that, the quality of almost everything is really down. According to the local yards, the good stuff is being shipped overseas and what they get is what they can get. Could be the coasts that have marine industries share in the good stuff or rather the yards get requests for it and know where and how to get it?

 

The best product I found anywhere was 1# SYP sold by a truss maker and even most of that had a lot of knots or other flaws.