Howard

How many have tried and/or switched to the cellulose thixotropic that is being touted as a replacement for fumed silica?

Seems MAS and those that sell it are touting it's benefits. I have questions.

For those of you who have glued a piece of rope to the leading edge of your CB or rudder blades, what type of rope, exactly, did you use? I've heard of everything from cheap braided polyethylene tow line to braided polyester to braided nylon dock lines to something as elaborate as Sta-Set double braid.

I would think the qualities you are after are abrasion resistance, compatibility with epoxy and an open enough weave that it can be fully saturated, leaving no air pockets. I can't imagine you could ever wet out something like Sta-Set, so that leaves the rest.......or maybe there is yet another option I've not heard of?

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!

Quick question for you guys to hash out for me. I am trying to make my wood choices to build a stem, stem cap and stem knee. These are about 5 to 6 feet long and from 2x stock (actually, more like 1 3/8" in todays lumber choices).

The two choices I have on hand are some doug fir I've had laying around for about 5 years or so, or, some SYP I picked up a few months ago. Both options were got out of 2 x 12's, taken straight out of the center of the tree, such that both had a center pith section, plus straight, quarter sawn grain on either side. The pith sections were ripped out and tossed, leaving residual pieces of long, straight, quarter sawn grain.

Issue is that in both cases, it appears the tree started out in life in a dense stand, that was eventually thinned and the tree took off growing. Both have an area of very tight growth rings in the middle, but then those widen to nice rings of around 12 or so per inch. In order to get the width I need, I'm either working between the sapwood and tight inner rings, or have to include both tight and not so tight rings on the same board. Because these have to be laminated together, I have been trying to avoid using flat or plain sawn pieces to avoid any cupping down the road. The boards in these pictures are remarkably straight, with nominal warping or cupping. For some reason, the doug fir pieces are bowed about 3/8" from end to end, but clamped as they are shown, these bows cancel out and the lamination would be dead straight.

Issue with the SYP is to get the width I need, I have to include the transition from fine to not so fine grain, and will include some of the very cupped rings along the side as well. Is this going to cause problems, or do I need to keep looking?

As an alternative to these two choices, I also have several flat sawn boards similar to the one shown in Doug Fir that I marked out for the stem knee. You can get reasonably wide pieces of quarter sawn from those, but the grain isn't as tight and the concern I would have about those is cupping when they are laminated together. On the other hand, the laminations narrow down a lot so the cupping issue may not even be a factor.

May sound like much concern about nothing, but these will be permanent, structural pieces. No reason to build in a problem if it can be avoided.

Anybody know what becomes of all those storm ravaged boats following disasters like Sandy?

I would suspect many of these boats are total losses, yet many would also have salvageable items like masts, sails, some electronics, engines, and all manner of hardware like anchors, rodes, cleats, etc. On some sailboats, there might be a ton or so of lead hanging on the bottom.

Where does all that stuff go? Hopefully not all of it to a landfill.