I've owned two 26 footer centerboards and now have a little Hunter 23 wing keel, but have sailed on some larger wing keel boats - The centerboard boats point worlds better than a shallow wing keel. The drawback seems to be in the maintenance of the centerboard hardware. The old Clipper Marine 26 had major problems and wasn't very well designed, the Ranger 26-2 I had was stout, simple, and never had an issue. I've always like shallow draft boats for gunkholing so I can get in where others can't and stay for free instead of needing a marina & so I was very interested in Feeling boats a few years back - have seen very very few that ever made it to the US but in France they are well respected boats. It sounds like you are on a larger budget but there are some older boats out there like Irwins that commonly built centerboard boats that worked well. I hate to even bring up Seewards but I will - they are centreboards but also made to be trailerable so very narrow beam, flat bottom and so very tender. A wide body boat with a Lead Keel/centerboard would be the ticket. Precision makes a great keel/centerboard boats but not big enough for your wants I think.