Princess 28 layout ideas

[Garry]

Howard, please post your layout sketch here so we don't hijack the Princess 26 thread. I have a feeling that the seat and chart table won't work well. Even on Rosita, my Allied Princess 36, a similar arrangement is cramped and uncomfortable.

We have some similar ideas. See my sketch below. Of course, Graham's experienced hand will probably enforce some realism and make some changes.

I learned something while I was designing the layout for Rosebud, my Pied Piper 28 years ago

see http://www.pbase.com/sailrosita/rosebud

The more you can keep the interior open on a small boat, the more comfortable it will be. I enjoyed cruising and living aboard Rosebud for three years and had lots of compliments that she was more roomy than many larger boats. That was primarily because there was only partial bulkheads between the V-berth area and the main cabin. The head was tucked in to port of the companionway. You can get an idea of the opening between the V-berth and the main cabin in the pic below.

In the sketch below, I have pulled the cabin's aft bulkhead back to the mizzen mast and offset the companionway to make room for the head. The V-berth and the seats are all at the same level, and I have eliminated the "filler notch" usual in most V-berth plans. I envision some kind of folding table for two.

This arrangement is heavy on the port side. Part of the design work may be to shift some of the batteries to starboard. I am planning for an electric outboard drive and happy to see some new products that make this more achievable. The new German Torqueedo outboard looks very good and is available through West Marine. I'm hoping for even more progress by the time I'm ready to start a P28.

http://www.torqeedo.com/en/hn/home.html

p28-draft layout 2.pdf

[Howard]

There is a lot of similarity in the layouts. Again, I tried to keep all that weight as close to the center, fore and aft and amidships, as possible. Moving the head aft makes sense but so does leaving the starboard bunk running under the bridge deck to create a pilot berth. I think yours also has the deeper keel which puts the CB under the cabin sole. I've retained the CB trunk in front of the galley to keep the draft shallow.

I think your design also has narrowed the side decks to the point of being almost like that of a raised deck design. That does open things up and as I understand it, creates reserve bouyancy in the event of a knockdown (assuming you have washboards in). I have also heard that you have to watch how far you offset the companionway, so the edge is above the waterline in the event of a knockdown. Otherwise, the cabin fills and you risk sinking. Don't know about the asthetics, but it might be possible to trim that cabin back some so a nested dinghy could live lashed down to chocks on the deck between the fore mast and cabin. A thought.

I'm not sold on my little chart table. I'd like to think there would be a way to put a small table that would seat two in place that could easily be setup or left in place. As the original was drawn, one could put that little seat forward to port, another fold down seat over the head and seat two that way where you have your table drawn. I have a design for a neat little folding table that could be setup in the cockpit for "dining out", but if it's cold and raining, or the bugs swarming, you want a table down below.

I had thought about leaving the notch out for the forward bunk, but fitting a moveable filler from the sole to the bunk, then fill it with cushions. Give you the ability to get to storage below the v-berth.

I'm also not sold on the orientation of the galley stove and if it needs an oven or not (one can bake on a kettle sized BBQ in the cockpit) or the ice hold. I liked Tom's suggestion of just using a cheap Coleman stove (I have two of them already), but what about pot holders? Even if you only cook while anchored, things can get ugly. A couple years ago, I got a wakeup call at 4 am by a crab boat, letting me know I had anchored in his fairway. He went by me less than 100 feet off and doing about 15 knots. His wake rolled me about 30 degrees and everything not nailed down went flying. On a boat, I like to see my pots held in place at all times.

My experience with even the 5 day coolers is they are the wrong size to fit anything, and hold ice at best 2 or 3 days. The ice box would be about the same size internally....sized to at least 2 and maybe 4 blocks of ice, and super insulated, with one or two containers about the size of a grocery store basket suspended above the ice. Some would say you need no ice at all on a boat, but I like to keep fresh fish, meat and eggs and I don't know how you keep that fresh for a week without some sort of refridgeration and I don't want a mechanical device. It's low tech, low cost ice or nothing for me.

Then the rest of it is trying to figure out how much and where to put storage for some pots and pans, a normal kitchen sized trash bin, the electric panel (and how many circuits), how much juice you want so you know how many batteries you need, etc. One thing missing from the sketch is the companionway ladder. It's going to be in the way of the galley, unless it can be made to fold up out of the way.

And while it may sound silly to be worried about all this now, I figure it's like building a house. The first thing you do is put in the drains for the plumbing. To do that, you have to know exactly where everything is going. Same with this....as you build, you will want to have everything sized and located and build it in as you go. Don't want to be moving or replacing any bulkheads once it's decked over!

[Howard]

On this type of boat, with motor well, is the well normally left open, or fitted with a plug to seal it up?

I would suspect that if the transom at the aft end of the well is at or below the waterline, water sloshes up and makes all kinds of problems. If it's raised and water slides by, it's OK. If it's open, perhaps the fuel and LP lockers are made to drain to the well....along with cockpit drains and possible other drains as well (bilge pumps, galley sink, etc.)? If not, drains go elsewhere.

Seems like the motor in a well is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that it's right there and handy and looks better out of sight and out of the way, vs. hanging off the transom. Curse if it's noisy and water splashing up and fumes blowing back in your face.

[Brent]

Where did this design end up with regard to head room and displacement?

I like the Torquedo idea - I expect electric technology to advance quickly - I can easily see a solar array providing a large portion of the boats power needs.

[Howard]

Not sure if I've ever heard a number for displacement. Headroom is about 5' 9" as I recall. Not enough for me (6 feet), but since my current boat is less than 4 feet with no decent place to even sit upright, a luxury. More than enough headroom for any crew I might have.

[JeffM]

Re: stove safety.  I bring a Coleman two-burner dual-fuel stove on my trips.  Worried about getting a lap-full of boiling water some day, I cut and bent some pieces of flat aluminum and screwed them with wingnuts to the sides of the stove.  A separate fitting clamps to the grate between the burners.  Theyre custom-fit to my tea kettle and saucepan, and keep them in place fairly well.  (As an added precaution, I generally cook with the stove on the cockpit floor to minimize spill range.)  They come undone pretty quickly so the stove will close for storage.  To be fair, I haven't amidst big boat wakes, though I have made tea underway.

[Garry]

Brent,

The Princess 28 design has been on hold while Graham built the EC22 and prepared for the Everglades Challenge. He said that he wants to get back to it soon but I haven't been pushing it.

I think 5'-9" is probably the maximum practical headroom for this design. Otherwise, it would require more displacement  and destroy the proportions which is not the boat that Graham and I are considering. I do plan to push the design limits a little to include a pilot house but I'm not sure how receptive Graham will be to raising the CG. I could probably increase the headroom a few inches under the pilot house without destroying the lines, but it still wouldn't meet full headroom for me at 6'-3".

Here are a couple of sketches I've been working on:

[Howard]

For those of you who get Small Craft Advisor, in addition to the nice article by Randy Marshall about the EC Challenge, is an article by Jerry Montgomery (who designed and built my existing Montgomery 17), about what went wrong on the original design of the Montgomery 23. In short, the center of gravity got too high and she was tender. They added more ballast to stiffen her up, which it did, but that also added weight to slow her down.

But it makes for a good case in point, that for these  type of shoal draft boats, everything in the boat has to be kept as low as possible. In this case, I would think the majority of all stowage inside to be at or below the level of the seat tops. And the reason why the cabin top cannot be very high. You want shoal draft like this and performance, you give up head room.

In Chapelle's book on small sailing craft, he mentions that most attempts to adapt the old sharpies to "yachts" were failures, typically because they did try to add more cabin room (taller and wider) and interior space to work boats that had evolved from very specific needs and living in them in comfort wasn't one of them.

The best solution was to go to a V bottom to add deadrise (lower center of gravity), which is pretty much the description of the Princess 28 hull form. In comparison to other yachts, they were still fast and stiff (possible but very difficult to capsize and self righting if they did), but they didn't draw less than a foot anymore. More like 2 feet......still way less than the 5 feet or more of the full keel boats and in performance, there was no comparison. The sharpies were always faster.

Interesting also that boats like the re-designed and again being built Montgomery 23....

http://www.msog.org/models/m23new/modelm23_new.cfm

is still a shallow draft, keel/centerboard boat. It draws only a few inches more than the Princess 28, but is considered "conventional), whereas the Princess might be considered extreme. The cat-ketch rig and similarity to the old sharpies probably contributes to that perception, but they are not that much different, except that I suspect the P28 would have slightly less draft, be faster (about the same displacement on 5 more feet of waterline with less wetted area) and more roomy, even with 5'9" or less headroom. Come to think of it, that is a lot of difference.

[Howard]

Just when you thought this had gone away......  :

A different look from the one I had before and different from the version Garry is working on.

This one now has steps to get you out of the boat (something I hadn't thought of before), which can fold up out of the way. Drew in a small table.....18 inch seat tops and 24 inch square table drawn to scale. These would fit to the topsides and the table would be made to lower to bunk level, so a kid could sleep on it in a pinch. But 99% of the time, the table would be left up. We are not talking luxury, but that much table should seat two and could double as a chart table.

Head moved to the port side. Sole from the forward cabin could be moved up as a filler for the V-berth. Pilot berth still remains to starboard, but it tucks back a bit. If chopping into that bulkhead is a structural problem, the table might have to be chopped. Berth is 6' 8" and I'm 6'.

Galley is just a two burner cooktop, either propane stove (including Coleman) or perhaps an Origo, either flush or surface mount. I have a single burner Origo alcohol stove and it really works better than most folks give credit to alcohol stoves. It boils enough water for coffee  or cleanup really fast and will burn any food I put on it. Not sure how much hotter you need it and it's safe. But a surface mount stove leaves room for a drawer for utensils and silverware. Would use RubberMaid tubs for food storage. Possibly in place of one of those drawer stacks, or just behind those stairs.

Other than layout, two things I still wonder about on this design. How much strain that small amount of "bury" of the CB will put on the CB trunk and likewise, how much strain the unstayed main mast will have on that small amount of "bury" on the forward tabernacle or even on the mast itself. Never having operated an unstayed mast like this, it seems like a lot of strain on both of them.

But it would be great to find out!

[Charlie Jones]

Something I did on Pilgrim Travis's Princess 22, is make a floor under the bridge deck, behind the steps, for the ice chest. It slides totally out of the way, but you just flip up a step and slide it out. Gives you plenty of access.

I can't stop for it right now but if you'd like I'll dig out the CD and post a picture of the steps and icechest area for you later today- taking a cool down break from installing new rear wheel bearings ( and brakes) on our Silverado.

I would not worry at all about that bury in either case. I've seen Pilgrim in reefed sailing conditions and her main is just fine. And that CB area is hell for stout. Trust Graham- he designs a safety factor in there- That's what you are paying him for isn't it? Use what he designs and I don't think you'll go wrong at all.

[Howard]

Ice hold vs. Ice Chest (cooler):

Last weekend I was out and on Friday PM put a 20# bag of ice in my Igloo Ultra Cold 50....a chilled 12 pack on the bottom and some food on top in the tray. Daytime temps were around 90 degrees, but during the day the cooler was inside on the cabin sole, out of the sun. By Sunday AM, about 75% of the ice had melted and was mostly just cold water sloshing around. Not the best.

The "hope" with the ice hold on this boat is to have a super insulated (4" to 6") box that would hold a charge of ice for up to a week or more. And to tie it to a drain so get rid of the melt water. And to go with it, a bit more capacity for food up out of the water.

If that is a pipe dream, then a cooler under the bridge deck is an option. Certainly one I'd use on a P22 that is day sailed or weekended or even week long trips. Simpler and no room for a bigger ice hold anyway.

ON the "bury", my thinking often reflects the "curse" of growing up on a farm, where we often had to beef up equipment that was damaged from what we thought was normal use. The downside is I'm always looking for things that could break. On the two items I mention, I know the power of levers and both of those will have a lot of leverage working on them. Graham probably does cringe and reach for the aspirin when we start dreaming up ways of helping him out.

[Charlie Jones]

A couple of points about keeping ice.

First, if you want the ice to last longer than a couple of days, forget bags of crushed ice. Ain't gonna happen . You have to switch to block ice and get the clearest block you can find. The compressed blocks of shaved ice are even worse than bags .

Our ice chest on Tehani will keep a blcok of ice for close to ten days, on the gulf coast, in June and July. A bag of crushed ice will last MAYBE 3 days. We make blocks ourselves in our freezer in a rubber maid dishpan. Makes a block about 16- 18 pounds.

Next, make sure the ice is NOT touching melt water. Get most of the melt out every day. You can leave some and have drinks sitting it it, but if the ice is sitting in the water, it'll melt MUCH quicker. In our built in ice chest on board Tehani there is a shelf for the blocks of ice that is just over the height of a drink can off the bottom. Cans will sit UNDER the block. We have no built in drain. Instead we pump water out ever day or two, maintaining a couple of inches in the bottom.

Third, learn to minimize the food that is actually IN the chest. DON'T put stuff in there that doesn't really require cooling. Stuff like ketchup, mayonaise ( no it DOESN'T ), eggs,  etc can be left out. Only put things in there that MUST be refrigerated. Actually we almost never use the ice box for food. We mainly keep cold drinks in there and use foods that require no refrigeration at all. Even on 30 day or longer cruises it's pretty easy to do once you start to study it.

Cold drinks on the other hand are almost a requirement in Texas and along the gulf coast during summer time. And I'm talking water, iced tea, etc. Beer if you must but I don't keep that much beer aboard while cruising. Better a rum and coke once the boat is secured in the evenings.

Next, be sure the LID is insulated as well as the sides. A LOT of heat filters in through lids. Ours are 3 1/2 inches of foam , glassed over and two piece so when getting a drink out we only have to open one side. They sit on a rubber gasket, and ours even have a double gasket. We also lay a sheet of silver backed flexible insulation on top of every thing and reach under that to get to things. We used to use d afolded space blanket but now have some of tha foam backed bubble insulation used for roofs, under shingles. ANYTHING you can do to minimize heat entry will prolong the life of the ice.

And if YOU MUST use crushed ice, then get some dry ice , wrap it in brown paper ( or newspaper) and put that on the bottom, then add your ice. Cation- things put right on the dry ice will freeze. Laura had a bunch of eggs all broken into a jar and the whole jar froze once. We had a tough time making tacquitos that morning ;D

And for those who will immediately chime in about how dangerous dry ice is- sure it is, but when you are trying to prolong ice, it's HOT outside- so the boat is open every place it CAN be opened- Because if you close it up you roast- So there's LOTSA of fresh air. And in cool weather when you have the boat closed up, you don't NEED the dry ice, so it isn't a problem.

[Garry]

Here are my latest sketches. I know Graham will groan when he sees the pilothouse. The cabin and pilothouse would need to incorporate foam core construction to keep the weight down.

The cockpit would be L-shaped to provide a pilot station at the forward end. I would investigate alternate steering capabilities like a "remote tiller" linked to the rudder as opposed to a wheel.

The head is aft on the port side to maintain the rest of the cabin wide open for a feeling of space and to promote ventilation. The settees would be at the same level as the V-berth with the ice-box under the stbd settee.

I'm still desiring an electric drive perhaps with a small diesel-generator set. Ah well, one must dream until the actual construction happens!

[Guest Wes]

Has there been any progress to this design?

I have been a huge fan of the Princess Sharpie for many years and had the privelege of seeing Travis' boat during construction in Victoria, TX.

What little I have read and seen about the 28 sounds like the boat design I have been waiting for.

Wes

[Garry]

Yes, Wes, we are making slow progress. Both Graham and I were distracted by other priorities for awhile but have recently started back on it. Graham provided an Excel worksheet to calculate center of gravity for the boat in cruising trim. I  estimated weights and moment arms (distance from reference points) for different storage and equipment locations. The total displacement right now is 5100 lbs. with generous tankage and storage capabilities. I'm sure a more performance oriented version could be built at 4000 - 4500 lbs. but I know how cruising boats tend to accumulate stuff.

Graham used that information to calculate ballast and stability curves. Our goal is 110 degrees Point of Vanishing stability for coastal cruising. 130 would be acceptable for offshore sailing but would require more ballast and deeper draft. I would like to investigate an option to be able to replace the centerboard with a fixed keel that bolts into the centerboard slot in case an extended Caribbean cruise becomes a possibility.

I'll keep you posted as things develop.

[Gordy Hill]

Gary,

I think you've come up with a  nicely proportioned pilot house that doesn't look too overwhelming for the boat.

In MY imaginary boat I was thinking of a solid/soft Bimini. I'd maybe run the cabin aft a bit more and have a solid top back to the mizzen. aft of that the top would be canvas. Among other reasons it would allow the mizzen to fold.

It could have isinglass curtains that fold right down in case there's a change in the weather. (Line from Oklahoma!)

At anchor the cockpit could be another room - with sleeping if the seats were large enough.

If the rear bulkhead of the cabin slants forward it creats a back rest for a wonderful aft facing lounge on either side.

Instead of being down in the boat I picture myself relaxing within the no-see-um screening, with my feet up and tinkling the ice in my G&T as the sun sets.

                                            Damn! I really have to get thqt garage built!

[Garry]

Hi Gordy,

I originally wanted to include a hardtop bimini but decided to go with the typical tubing and Sunbrella hardtop (which is included in the table of weights and moment arms). I wanted to be able to see the sails and feel the sun with the bimini furled on those beautiful days.

The hard dodger (I can't call it a pilot house since its not enclosed) would have window openings that could be left open or closed as needed. I'm not sure what would be a good arrangement for that yet. Note that the hardtop is built around the tabernacle for the mizzen with a slot aft to allow the mast to be lowered.

I definitely plan for a cockpit enclosure to extend the season on cool evenings. I remember being envious one cold winter day in St. Augustine when everyone was huddled below except one boat which had an enclosure; they were relaxing with their drinks and enjoying the scenery!

The boat will be tiller steered but I am also planning some kind of pilot wheel arrangement on the starboard side of the cockpit under the hardtop. The wife is not fond of a tiller and it will provide an alternate piloting arrangement in the shelter of the dodger.

[Oyster]

[Charlie Jones]

Mike- the double pic is just something that happens when you embed the picture in text. Did the same thing to me several times. I just assume that's gonna happen and don't sweat it.

[Garry]

Handsome boat!