For the last few years I have been trying to keep the weight of my 26S as low as possible, keep "heavier stuff" forward, fluffy light stuff (like the bed) aft. I just put on a new 110 jib. All this was done to try and get the most performance out of the 26S but with it still "as comfortable as possible". Note.. the one really fast 26D I know of has just about everything inside the hull stripped out including any wire to keep the weight low.. I still want a somewhat comfortable camping boat.. And.. Ive ended up with a reasonably fast boat for how easy it is to launch and trailer.
I single hand almost all the time with this boat and one thing Im missing out on for performance is being able to raise the centerboard for down wind runs. Definitely a little faster with the centerboard up downwind where its only contribution is drag. I do this sometimes now but have to go down into the cockpit to do this (two trips to raise than again lower).
Bob Hussey who sometimes visit this forum had modified his 26S to lead the centerboard control to the cockput and Sumner put what he did here http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-other-people/other-people-mods-4.html Sumner copied it and modified what Bob did, I think you can find Sumners modified setup on his web site. edit - here is Sumners version http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor2/rigging-19.html
Also Bobs picture album here https://picasaweb.google.com/husseybob/Watermark9126S?authkey=YdzPd_9lrDs#
So.. Im thinking about this myself but years ago I also heard about another guy who put some sort of tube directly from the centerboard pull up access, through the cabin (in the area where the D centerboard trunk is) with access to the top of the hull. He then has a couple fairly simple blocks to get the control line over to the cockpit. The pipe he put in was water tight so that any rain water that entered through the access hole on the deck just went straight down to the trunk hole.. no problem. The picture below shows about where this new tube/pipe would go.
Keeping in mind that the whole point of this is downwind performance so it needs to be very usable and I think have way less blocks with all sorts of direction changes would be less drag, more reliable.. but dont know.
At one time I thought I has seen a picture in a member here "Fibroxie" picture album of a pipe like I just described.. but cant find the picture.
Im just thinking about this.. but I think being able to raise the centerboard on a light 26S easily from cockpit would make it a fairly fast down wind boat.
I single hand almost all the time with this boat and one thing Im missing out on for performance is being able to raise the centerboard for down wind runs. Definitely a little faster with the centerboard up downwind where its only contribution is drag. I do this sometimes now but have to go down into the cockpit to do this (two trips to raise than again lower).
Bob Hussey who sometimes visit this forum had modified his 26S to lead the centerboard control to the cockput and Sumner put what he did here http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor-other-people/other-people-mods-4.html Sumner copied it and modified what Bob did, I think you can find Sumners modified setup on his web site. edit - here is Sumners version http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor2/rigging-19.html
Also Bobs picture album here https://picasaweb.google.com/husseybob/Watermark9126S?authkey=YdzPd_9lrDs#
So.. Im thinking about this myself but years ago I also heard about another guy who put some sort of tube directly from the centerboard pull up access, through the cabin (in the area where the D centerboard trunk is) with access to the top of the hull. He then has a couple fairly simple blocks to get the control line over to the cockpit. The pipe he put in was water tight so that any rain water that entered through the access hole on the deck just went straight down to the trunk hole.. no problem. The picture below shows about where this new tube/pipe would go.
Keeping in mind that the whole point of this is downwind performance so it needs to be very usable and I think have way less blocks with all sorts of direction changes would be less drag, more reliable.. but dont know.
At one time I thought I has seen a picture in a member here "Fibroxie" picture album of a pipe like I just described.. but cant find the picture.
Im just thinking about this.. but I think being able to raise the centerboard on a light 26S easily from cockpit would make it a fairly fast down wind boat.
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