Princess 26

[Don Silsbe]

A friend of mine showed me, long ago, that the spray from a bow wave strikes roughly amidships. For aft cabin boats, this puts the skipper and crew smack into the spray zone, rather than having the spray hit the cabin top. Not sure how this applies to a Princess 26. Would someone be willing to do some testing and maybe even video recording?

[Howard]

Back at it. Having been working on small things when I have the time, and lately, that has been the CB and CB trunk, in anticipation of needing them in the not too distant future.

 

Anyway, for those with plans or plans to buy plans and are following along, plans do not give you a certain width for the kingposts that set the width of the CB trunk, other than to allow about 3/16" more width than the finished CB. Now that my CB is finished, I estimated that width to be 2 1/16th inches. So both king posts and all internal spacers and fillers have been final planed to that width. That means I can start gluing this together.

 

Back on post #75, I showed a mockup I did of the lifting tackle design, which has the eye straps oriented vertical to the CB and king posts. When I tried that, I quickly realized that would not work as the shackles on the blocks required the eyes to be horizontal. So for the CB end, I replaced a single eye strap with an eye bolt. Also planned to retain the two eye straps on the king post, but orient them horizontal.

 

So I was about to glue in the king posts when I realized it would be far easier to drill, back fill and re-drill the final holes for the eye straps while the king post was still loose. Once it goes in, not much room to work with. So, did that and was about to glue them in when I thought it might be a good idea to put it all together one last time, before going past the point of no return. Good thing I did.

 

When putting this together, I wanted the block to be on top, which would leave the best exit run aft and would also move the block as far from the pivot point as possible, gaining the most leverage possible. What quickly became evident is the lines for the tackle, if mounted like this, will rub together......meaning chafe in an area where you can't see it, meaning failure when you least expect it. I'm also in the camp that thinks Murphy was an Optimist, so not only would it fail when you least expect it, but also at the worst possible time.

 

Swapped the block to lower position, and that helps, but not enough. Thinking this is not a good way to do it. You could orient it vertically on the king post, but there still isn't much room to operate or for the lines to pass. What I'm thinking now is to move the dead end eye strap off the king post and to the side of the CB trunk. That helps with the alignment and eliminates some of the clutter on the king post.

 

My first thought was it puts the strain on that eye strap in shear, but that is probably stronger than a dead pull in tension anyway. Aside from that, when the line gets to the aft end of the CB trunk, it runs through a turning block that is simply screwed to the side of the CB trunk, so can't see how it is any different from that.

 

Lastly is how to connect the lifting line at the dead eye end. I have it using a simple stopper know, but my guess is a stainless steel thimble spliced onto the end would be better and far less likely to chafe through.

 

Lastly comes the issue of which side of the CB trunk do you attach the turning block aft? As I've studied the plans, I always assumed it to be outboard or to Port. What I found when I assembled the bulkheads was if you did it on that side, the turning block inside the cockpit would have to be almost flush with the cockpit sides.....making it tough to grab. Move it inboard and the turning block is a few inches in. Not only easier to grab, BUT, if the weight of the board proves to be a bit much, a person could always set a sheet winch inside the cockpit to help with the lifting. Doubt that will be needed, but could be added if it is.

 

 

[wasserboot]

Howard, that looks good!
For changing blocks in future: will you have access to the kingpost block once the Case is glued together?
Perhaps ist placing the block in the same corner,  but to the centerboardcase-caps underside easier to maintain?

[Howard]

CB case has a removable cap that runs nearly the entirely length, so yes, you will have access to the entire interior of the case, except it is only going to be about 2 inches wide, so not much room to operate. But enough to get to the turning blocks, on the CB or the case, plus the lines, so it will be possible to replace the lines, etc, even on the water. The CB pin also comes out, so you can remove the board, but since the pin runs below the waterline, you can't do it while the boat is in the water. You might be able to do it at low tide with the boat careened over on a beach.......but you better work fast or else get the caps back on before the water comes back.

 

I initially thought I would use screws set in epoxy plugs for the eye straps, but quickly realized there would not be enough room inside to use a screw driver, so had to come up with plan B. That is to run threaded screws in from the outside, and put nuts on top of the eye straps. There is room for that. After more detailed study of the plans, I'm confident that is what Graham was thinking.

[W.Robson]

Hi Howard, as you are finding, space for lifting gear is fairly limited. I tried a different approach by making the pivot point central in the case ( which also raised it above the waterline) and and attaching the uphaul at the trailing edge of centreboard. I made up fittings in ss to carry the required two sheaves . It aint perfect but it works!

[Howard]

Wayne:

 

That looks like a clever solution. Moving the lifting tackle as far as possible from the pivot point will help with the leverage.  Have been wondering how you rigged the downhaul.

 

My plan is to stick with the stock design features as drawn to see what happens. I do know if I keep having to horse that 80# CB around much more I'll either have a broken back or be ripped like Arnold. I know it will all change when it hits the water, but when the boat is on the trailer, there will be serious strain on the tackle. A support of some type for that lead tip will be an absolute must.

[ricardoramalho]

I love the design of the Princess 26, it is probaby the best option around 26 feet. It has a very modern, simple and light construction design. And looks very nice. I love the bow and the shallow draft fast hull.

 

Question:
What would we have to do, to make the boat an ocean cruiser? Althought Graham explains "The boat is not intended to cruise around the world", I would love to reach Azores and then Europe. What do you think? Maybe stayed mast? Extra ballast? Solar power eletric motor??

 

Cheers!!! Ricardo

[Howard]

Ricardo:

 

Your question about the ability of a Princess 26 to cross the Atlantic is probably one best left for Graham to answer directly. Granted, the Atlantic isn't the Capes, but does have it's share of rough water potential. My guess is if that is your plan, there are more more robust designs to consider. Peter has built a 28 footer with CB and Scott has started a larger boat of 32+/- feet with solid keel. I would think either of those two would be better suited to that task. My thoughts are that the Princess 26 should be considered as a coastal cruiser best suited for places like the east coast, where shallow waters are to be found. But even those can get dicey at times and she should be able to handle it, but in coastal waters like these, if you do break a mast or are somehow disabled, help is not far away. In an open ocean crossing, help won't be found, so there would be some areas where you might want to beef up some things......but in doing so, that has the potential to change a lot of design criteria, that may not be for the better.  Again, those are good reasons to consider a boat that is designed for that duty.

 

But as far as a plywood boat of this type making it, I always think back to Yankee Girl. It has been done.

 

http://www.sailingbreezes.com/sailing_breezes_current/articles/Nov05/yankeegirl1.htm

[Ken_Potts]

   Ricardo - It might be worth investigating if the Princess 26 will fit in a shipping container.  Then you could sail scenic shallow waters of Europe or anywhere in the world with your centerboarder.  And if you still want to cross the Atlantic you can always crew on a keel boat.  And if you shipped your boat ahead and crewed your way around the world you'd see things that many circumnavigators miss.  I'm thinking of the shallow waters of the Bahamas, North Carolina, the Zuiderzee, the Norfolk Broads...

   Having said that, Webb Chiles made it most of the way around the world in an open boat.  "Seaworthy" means different things to different people.

[Designer]

Ricardo, I am glad that you like our P26 design. The sharpie form has been well proven over the years as a seaworthy shape.

 

The P26 was designed to be lightweight for trailering and shoal draft. To cross the Atlantic, she would be loaded down with stores and safety equipment, even for a crew of two. I would prefer a greater range of stability, as Howard mentioned, you cannot pick your weather once you are a week or two offshore.

 

The heavier boat would require increased scantlings to handle the higher loads. The under water volume would need to be increased to carry the higher weight. The rig would have to be increased and made stronger.

 

Suddenly it is complete redesign.

 

Steve and Margo Wolf sailed a 24' Piver Nugget trimararan with 2x4 folding beams around the world in the 70's.  I think that this was an outstanding piece of seamanship. Steve was smart and went to extremes to keep her light. His auxiliary power was a paddle. It was pre GPS which meant that navigation was with a sextant, plastic because it was lighter. Steve would not carry a whole almanac but carried only a few pages and extrapolated for the rest. Two sets of clothes and a windbreaker were all that was allowed. I redesigned his beams into laminated box beams and eliminated the folding mechanism which saved lot of weight. We gave her more beam and raised the amma's  which gave more stability and reduced wetted surface area.

 

I mention this because there have been a lot of outstanding voyages in the most unlikely boats, because they sailed very smart or were very lucky. There have probably been as many disasters that we do not know about.

 

I 

[Howard]

ON CB case, rails and doublers are glued on. Was going to go ahead and glass it, but decided to hold off until it is fitted and ready to go. Plans say not to drill the pivot pin holes until then, so have held off on that too.

 

Also seem to recall there being a slight difference in where the LWL on the CB trunk mated up to the LWL on on BH#5, so figured it best to stop here until time to actually fit it. Good to get it ready, however.

 

BTW, even as shown, CB trunk is heavy. Have not weighed it, but could easily top 40 to 50 pounds. Glued and glassed in, it will be hell for stout!

 

 

[Howard]

Made some progress on the keel. Reminder, keel is formed from two parts. Permanent keel stub, plus 750# lead keel that goes on the bottom. Permanent keel deadwood is 3", lead keel part is 3 3/4". These are formed and shaped together, but need to be two separate parts. The wood part that becomes the lead keel is nothing more than a plug, so was able to use "iffy" lumber for that. Since I had it, I used a combination of 2 - 1 1/2 " planks, plus one 1". That would have made 4 inches of lead, which by my calculations would run the lead weight up to 800 pounds. So did some thickness planing and brought them back down.

 

For those wondering how more draft and ballast could be added, not sure what Graham has in mind, but having done it, a builder might be able to insert an additional deadwood plank in the mix to lower the same amount of ballast (would increase the righting moment), leave the lead part as 4" and hike ballast to 800 pounds, or any combination of those. Seems to me a lot of ways to skin that cat, but I'll leave that for others to worry about. I'm trying to stay as close to the actual plans as possible to see how it goes.

 

So for shaping, early on, I developed a shaped pattern that I could use to trace the required shape onto each plank. Two dimensions are given. Full shape, and shape at the bottom edge, resulting in a swept back nose that is narrower at the bottom than at the top. Keel also pinches in or rakes forward aft. Decided the best way to set these shapes was to trace the large outline on all planks, the smaller outline on what would only be the bottom edge of the bottom plank, then cut the nose and tail sections in one piece to set the angle on all of them. To do that, you need some type of saw to be able to cut that. A chain saw came to mind, but then remembered I had a hand saw that would do it. This one is an Atkins 65, rip saw with 5 1/2 teeth per inch, but is filed crosscut, so is able to (slowly) handle a cut of this size. Extra tooth size is needed to carry the dust out of the cut. Was a pretty good workout, but it did work.

 

After that, did a rough cut out of each plank with a circular saw. Tried both circular saw and jigsaw and circular saw won hands down. About 4x as fast and 2x as accurate. When all were pinned together, rough outline takes shape. Next step will be to glue top and bottom halves together, then reassemble for final shaping.

 

One additional step is included. Plans also make reference to small wedges that will be needed under the nose and tail sections. These are needed to conform to the curvature of the hull. I went ahead and included these in the nose and tail sections, but final shaping will come later. Outline shape given in the plans does not take these into consideration, but the builder will need to.

 

Lastly, the most helpful part of this entire project has been the plywood pattern. I would do one for the top and bottom to increase the speed and accuracy of the shaping.

 

On the tail section, note how far apart and staggered each piece becomes. Ideally, each plank would be dead straight, and these were when they were purchased, but didn't stay that way. Most of them managed to stay mostly flat with no twisting or cupping, but nearly all of them developed a slight bow. I was able to get all these planks from 5 1/2" (1 x 6 and 2 x 6) boards, but it was tight, and required some fitting. However, once they were all cutout, they all had the same shape. They are now pinned together with dowel rods and getting them glued before they distort anymore will be important.

[Don Silsbe]

I plan to have only one line in the c/b well-- some 4mm Amsteel. That will exit the forward king post, making a turn aft via a cheek block. A series of three small blocks (cascaded) should give me the purchase I need for my BRS15. I hope I never have to buy a pair of double or triple blocks again! $$$ I'm off on a vacation now, so my mock-up won't happen until late June at the earliest.

[Howard]

Keel has been shaped to it's final form. Not much else to add, except how I shaped the nose. In addition to being swept back or raked, it also pinches in at the bottom in a variable curved shape The top and bottom come together and become one uniform shape about 2 feet aft of the nose section. To form this shape into the nose, I again used a hand saw to cut score marks at 1 inch intervals. Cut down to where the saw teeth barely score the top board of the deadwood and down to the line marked on the bottom board. Remove the excess until you get to the bottom of the score marks and the shape should take place.

 

To bring the sides down flush, I hit the sides with acrylic spray paint, then hit is lightly with sandpaper to find the high spots and then started working them down to flush. Although the sides are shown as 90 degrees on the plans, I actually took a bit more off the bottom......about 1/16" per side, such that there is a slight bit of taper. This should help when it comes time to pull the plug from the sand casting.

 

I eventually wised up and went from dowel rods to align things and clamps to hold them together to threaded rods with nuts top and bottom. Made it a whole lot easier to roll this thing over and over and over and to keep it all aligned.

 

Doing this again, I might consider using plywood scraps to make the bottom plug part. Just glue them up with tightbond or gorilla glue (not epoxy). They would be easier to shape and will remain stable. Glue up the entire plug to rough overall shape, then run that through a bandsaw.

 

I did find a problem with the one plank of deadwood I cut with my jigsaw. Somehow that blade managed to cut inside the final shape line. It will have to be cleaned up, then backfilled with thickened epoxy to bring it out flush. The painting trick really works to help find the high and low spots. My eye alone could never do that well.

[Scott Dunsworth]

Howard I think I will finish building my keel the same way you just did. Only exception would be I will use blue board foam for the bottom that will be removed to mold the lead. Great work keep it up and keep posting it!

We will be trying to roll my hull over this weekend, let you know how that goes, shes about 2000# right now.

 

Scott

[Howard]

I had not considered using the foam. The tail section gets pretty thin.........mine is now 3/8" and plans suggest is should be 1/4". Not sure if foam is rigid enough to avoid side to side distortion of the tail when packing the sand for the casting. But if it is, and a builder was careful to check it, to make sure it remained straight, foam might be a good option. Come to think of it, you can put a single layer of glass cloth on it and that would stiffen it enough to keep it from distorting side to side. Or simply check it often with a straight edge as you are packing the casting sand around it.

 

If blue (or pink) foam can be used, that would be a piece of cake to shape. Make your templates, top and bottom, but for the bottom template, hold off on final shaping the pinched in section on the bottom. Shape just the dead wood section that goes on the boat first......identical templates on both sides. When that looks good, you can add the foam, then cut the foam with a hot wire foam cutter. It will come out perfect. At that point, all you would have left is the nose section. You could then cut out the shape of the nose section similar to what I did.

 

A big advantage of foam or plywood is once shaped, it will remain stable and the shape of the plug won't distort over time. If you are not able to make the sand casting right away, it shouldn't matter.

[Howard]

With the keel and CB case ready to go when the time comes, have resumed work on the hull. Next step was the stringers, which I have been fretting about since the first time I saw the plans. It turns out, those are not that big of a deal.

 

About the only fitting involved, once you have the notches cut into the bulkheads, is at the stem knee. Wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, but after scribing and fitting, they came out flush to the bevel off the stem.

 

There is some twist to those......about 80 degrees or so.......that takes place inside the span of about 10 feet. A person can twist those easy enough but how to you get them to stay put? I finally decided to add some glue blocks to the bulkhead notches and after twisting the stringer staves into place with a big wrench, screwed them down so they would stay put. As near as I can tell, they look like the plans, so will be glued in place. (Had to deal with the obligatory busted one. Had extra length, so cut that off and started again.....with double screws to spread the load.......which is substantial). It also helps to use long screws.......so they won't pull out.

 

Next step will be to glue the stringers in place, but before doing that decided to mock up some of the bottom panels. Those appear to hit the high spots, but do not conform directly to the stringers. Plans say some twist may have to be planed into those, and I suspect that may be what the reference is. Plane the high spot down so those lay somewhat flat, then start trimming the edge of the keel planks as well. Somewhere about the top of BH #2, those stop laying flat and no amount of pressure will make them bend into place. So.......time to start trimming and fairing these into the keel.

 

For those who have actually done this, does that sound right?

[maligno]

Howard, thanks for the deadwood construction photos. That's exactly where I'm now stuck in my Belhaven build.

Any particular reason for not gluing the boards together before shaping them?

[Howard]

Each section was glued together prior to shaping. The three planks what will become the boat's keel deadwood were glued together. The three planks that will become the plug for the lead keel were glued together as a group. Then the two of them were joined with clamps and later threaded rod for shaping. But now that they are shaped, the plug can simply drop off and head for the beach (sand mold). 

 

Missing in all that are two additional plank sections.........wedges for the keel deadwood at the nose and tail. The bottom has a bit of rocker, so curves......the deadwood is straight, so wedges will need to be fitted at the nose and tail and need to continue the same shape profile beyond the shape profile given in the plans. These will have to be scribed and fitted as the keel is being installed.

[Howard]

A bit more progress. BTW, not sure if it was something I did or if the plans need more fine tuning, but with the sides installed and bulkhead  #1 in it's designated position, I was getting some "concave" in the side panels at bulkhead #1. Ultimately, if left that way, if would mean a dished in / reversed curve section through that area of about 1/16th to 1/8 inch that would either be left as an eyesore or something requiring major fairing, neither of which appealed to me, so decided to bite the bullet and find a way to fix it. Ultimately, that simply meant moving bulkhead #1 forward about half an inch which allowed the sides to adopt a fair curve through the bulkhead #1 area. Anyway, once I was satisfied with that, I was free to permanently fix the stringers in place and get going on the remaining forward bottom panels.

 

I initially started dry fitting each of the bottom layers of bottom panels but once I got about 6 of those in, they started distorting the stringers out of shape. Talked to Graham and abandoned the plan to dry fit them all first and go back and start gluing them permanent, inside and outside. So far, I have 4 of the bottom panels in and 3 of the tops. As the curve starts to take place, pretty incredible how solid that area is becoming. Tapping on the 3 bottom panel that bends over the top of bulkhead #2 is about like tapping on the concrete floor beneath it.

 

Plans suggest "notching" the interior panels at the chine to get them to get them to transition from lying on top of the chine to blending into it.  For the notching process, I'm using a 45 degree router bit chucked in a small Bosch router. When that is fitted over the outside edge of the side panel at the chine, it allows the inside edge to drop down almost flush with the sides. As I move forward, I deepen the notch. By the time I get forward far enough for to ditch the the notch and go to a vertical butt joint at the chine, the step down will be nominal and should blend in seamlessly.

 

For the first few panels, I used an Arrow pneumatic stapler with 1/2" monel staples. They work well, but I'm not excited about digging all those out (don't have to but I don't want to leave metal in the hull to potentially damage tools), so now have the plastic Raptor staples to try. Jury is still out on that one. BTW, even though this is an outside bend, something you might think would clamp itself, it is also a compound outside bend, so without the staples, one edge or the other or both may "pucker up" a bit. To get them to conform and lay flat to the desired shape, you do need to staple them.

 

Bottom line this is not as big a deal as I have been worried about. Does take some time to fit these individual panels into place, but slow and steady will get there eventually.