Howard

Gerrit: The cockpit footwell is same size as the plans; about 20 inches have been added aft of the original transom to accommodate the motor.

 

Does this mean you extended the length of the boat by 20 inches? It is now a Bellhaven 21?   If so, hopefully you had plans or approval for doing that as the additional length would disrupt a lot of design parameters, such as center of lateral resistance, ballast location, etc.

As I recall, the usual plan is to have the motor mounted on the transom. My Montgomery 17 has the same arrangement and you do have to watch how close the motor is mounted to the rudder, or in a hard turn, the rudder will get into the prop. If that is the case, you may want to put a lashing on the aft end of the tiller to limit its range of motion.  When under power, because the tiller is running in smooth laminar flow adjacent to the prop, I have never experienced the any tiller vibration under power. Would be curious to know what caused that for Scott.

The Princess 26 plans have the motor mounted directly in front of the rudder, such that when under power, rudder will be operating in the prop wash......at least the upper portion of it near the surface. Bottom half will be in smooth flow. That seems to work well on the Princess 22 boats. On Wayne's Princess 26, I seem to recall he did something similar to the setup above, moving the motor slightly to starboard in a well, such that the motor could pivot on it's own mount, vs. riding a vertical sliding car. He also put a slot in his transom. We know he has motored some distance with it, but have not heard how it is working for him.

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!