Scott Dufour

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Then admit you're powerless over it. Then order the plans, and trust in your higher power-tools.

So somehow I convinced SWMBO that a 24 x 36 pole building isn't that much different from the small shed she'd agreed to. These pics show the cool process I used of building much of the roof on the ground, and then cranking it up into place using.. what else? Boat trailer winches!

Randy, My record for centerboard-in-the-wrong-position is 3 times in one day:1) Left board down. Centerboard slightly down as I tried to push boat off trailer, causing board to bang against trailer cross bar. Had to re-hook up the winch to pull the boat up a few feet, pull board up all the way.2) Left board up. Pushed out from dock, kept sailing back down onto it. "Why don't this boat point better?" 3) Conciously left board down. Coming in to beach, figure the bungie cord would stretch enough as I got into shallow water. Nope. Stuck, turned up to wind, slipped backwards a little, stuck again. Ugly.But I keep sailing. Someday I may even look like I know what I'm doing. Someday.

The hardware is made from stainless bar I worked into shape and drilled. It's not pretty, but I couldn't see dropping the several hundred dollars it would cost to purchase them. I learned a bit about working with stainless. I'm considering reinforcing them with a weld, but I don't have the ability to weld stainless, so we're back into frugality issues... I'll probably go that route, though, because a rudder is just not something to under build.

Hi Howard, Must be an optical illusion in the photo- the rudder blade's the same size as you indicated. It IS a big rudder- the tiller's length really surprised me, too. I cast the lead exactly as I believer graham described it in the plans. I made the centerboard to specs, cut off the tip, and used that as the male mold for casting in greensand. I had to special order some clay to get the right consistency of sand/clay for the mold. I melted the lead in a old kitchen pot using just a propane blow torch, the pot suspended by wire from a sawhorse. when melted, I tipped it into the mold, let it cool for a day, then worked it smooth with a bastard file. It gave me the confidence to CONSIDER doing the keel, when the time comes.

Just a few progress photos. I actually finished this over a year ago, but never got around to posting. Work has stopped to finish that canoe and build a garage for the existing boats, and a space to make more.

Thank you everybody for your input. I sent and email to Graham, and he said the max distance from Keel to mizzen tabernacle top is 8' 2". Add some slop for anything sitting proud, and we're up to 8 1/2 feet... a ten foot door, then, gives me 18" to play with on the trailer, which given all your responses, sounds like it should be enough. Just enough.

So I'm building a garage in which I'll build and house my PS26. Anybody got a good idea as to how high I need to make the doors so I can get it in and out on a typical trailer? There's the tabernacles, some horizontal mast issues, the crutch heights. All of those I can take a stab at using the plans. What I don't know about is how much to add for the trailer height because I've go no experience with trailers for a boat this size. Any wisdom out there?

My boat was about off square about the same amount, and I have to say that I do notice a difference in performance. She pulls slightly to port when on a broad reach, and over a distance of 10 nautical miles, I find she's wandered a good ten feet off a straight line. It's not so bad in the northern hemisphere when the Coriolis Effect cancels it out, but it wreaks havoc when rounding the great capes.

Two kids getting into the sports and schooling years, seven-to-five job, family... There really aren't that many weekends in a year anymore.

Very single-handle-able. Do it all the time.

I'll give another shout out for rivnuts. I've used them with many thin-wall applications in aerospace parts and they're designed for exactly this purpose; places you wish you could get a nut behind, but there's no getting back there.

I've found rivnuts to be useful in these situations. They come in stainless, and if you're really worried about pull out, use the Plus Nut kind. Very easy to work with, quite strong. http://www.rivetsins...com/rivet47.htm

Graham's PS26 plans called state: "Because the centerboard is buried inside the trunk, it is a good idea to glass it. Use at least 12 oz - suggested it 1208 biaxial." He also states that "The chine joints are taped using 1208 biaxial cloth, cut on the 45 degree bias. Use a single layer, each strip being 7.5 inches wide, on the inside and out. Bulkhead tabbing and transom are attached the same way." He doesn't say anything about covering the hull, deck, inside or out, with 1208. It's strictly for those structural points, and then the centerboard. And I think the centerboard use is a special case. The 1208 biaxial I used is just what Howard described: 12 oz biaxial fibres over a 8 oz. mat. Wicked itchy, very thirsty. I will handle with care in the future... I imagine that for hull and deck covering, I'll use the standard 8 oz weave.

It's amazing how much epoxy the 1208 soaks up. I built both the centerboard and rudder according to Graham's specs- the foils are from doug fir 2x6s ripped into quartersawn, swapped end for end. I shaped them mostly with a cheap power planer, and did the ol' epoxy-rope trick on the leading edges. I cut the tip off the centerboard and used it to make a greensand mold for the lead. (It was tough finding bentonite clay for the greensand. I ended up ordering some from a cosmetic supply company on EBay.) I melted the lead in an old steel pot suspended with wire from a sawhorse over propane flame. The pour was very easy. I used my table say to cut a clean top on the lead tip. (Warning: when Pb chips come off the top of a ten inch table saw blade, they can really pack a wallop right through your shirt. I swear, they should use that stuff for bullets!) After cleaning up the rest of the tip with a rasp, I epoxied it onto the board with the help of a biscuit joiner for alignment (completely unnecessary). The aforementioned power planer made short work of cutting a trough along the lead/wood join, and I filled that with about 5 strips of 8 oz fiberglass. Sanded, filled with low spots with microballoon thickened epoxy, sanded again. Then the 1208, filled the weave with the micoballoons, sanded again. I looked many places for pintles and gudgeons, but it seem like only Schaefer is making them anymore. I found some good ones at http://www.rigrite.com/Hardware/Rudder_Hardware/Pintles&Gudgeons.htm , but I'm not going to pay that kind of scratch for them.

And I'm afraid that the disease may be genetic; while I'm building the PS26, my 12 year old is building a CLC 16' Sassafras canoe. It's nice to pass on the madness.

Having built the CS17, I'm only just now starting to get used to the large size of this 26 footer. When my wife saw the tiller she said, "We're gonna need a bigger boat." By the time I'm done with this thing, my daughter ought to be taller than the rudder...

I'm also about done with the rudder and tiller. I couldn't find any pintles I liked (too pricey), so I banged some 2" stainless into shape myself, and I'll add some 1/2" stainless pins later. I like to think they look salty. And of course I meant to put those hammer marks in there...

I put CS26 in the topic line, but I meant PS26. I don't know how to change it. I guess we'll have to live with it. Dewey Defeats Truman! Just some pics from the PS26 build I started last month. This will be about a 10 year project. I built the centerboard as Graham specified with 50 lbs of lead in the tip (poured in a greensand mold), and glassed with 1208 biaxial. This cloth is MUCH thicker and nastier (itchy!) than the 8 oz cloth I'm used to.

Hurray! My power just came back on. I'm amazed at the job our local utility crews did getting us back up and running. Trees down everywhere, wires and poles all over the roads just two days ago. My family used the heck out of our large Kelly Kettle I bought after reading an article in Small Craft Adviser. This thing's great. http://www.kellykettleusa.com/

A few weeks ago my ten year old son and I took our CS17 gunkholing near the mouth of the Connecticut River. It was 15 knots, gusting to 20 at odd intervals. With one reef in, we beat upwind on the flood into 18 inch deep, twisting and turning channels no more than a dozen yards wide. We must have tacked a hundred times in two hours. We just stayed sitting on the sole, pushing the helm over whenever the reeds and rushes got close, rarely even touching the sheets. The whole time we talked about egrets, baseball, and the meaning of life. This boat just kept on making headway, like a good horse that knows its way home.

I've got a similar question with the PS26 plans- I'm wondering how that Main Sheet is going to be rigged...

So one Tom says drill it out, one Tom says maybe, and Ray says it's fine as it is. (And it is 50 lbs, not 35. I don't know how I got 35 in my head.) Ray, are you thinking that there's just not that much force on that pin because when the board's up, it's just got the upper half of the wood weight, and when it's down, it's in the water with neutral buoyancy? A related question falls out of this: silica thickened epoxy certainly seems harder, but I've also found it very brittle. I'm guessing a bushing would rather be elastic than brittle...

Hey guys, I've started on the Princess Sharpie 26 (Hull #3). Just the fiddly bits like the centerboard and rudder. The centerboard pivot calls for the ol' epoxy bushing trick, and I've already poured it. But now I'm thinking that I should have used something other than straight epoxy- maybe something thickened with silica or milled glass for strength. That centerboard is about 5 feet long and the tip's weighted with 35lbs of lead. Any advice if I should drill out the epoxy and add something thickened? Or is that over-engineering?

So this is brilliant! I'm definitely trying it for the next ones. Thanks.