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50 inches is what I have as well. The folkboat is 52-3/8" wide. I'll create some pdf's of the various lines and post a link for those who might be interested in the differences between the two boats.

I have an overlay drawing of the Contessa over Folkboat lines if somebody can instruct me on how to upload a pdf file? The contessa has significantly more volume which has always made me question the old story that Rogers and Sadler just used an old cold-molded Folkboat hull as the plug without doing some serious tweaking.

I've owned a JJT 76 that had the pockets under the winch bases so it appears as if taylor had more than one deck mold they used.

As most of you know there were never any plans or lines drawn for the original Contessa 26 since it was a splash from one of Roger's wooden folkboat hulls. The small lines drawing seen on some sites are in no way accurate so don't use those. It happens however that we're in the process of preparing drawings for a 'certified' folkboat for a client and these could probably be used.

She's built completely by hand with a strip planked hull and deck on 1/8" plywood bulkheads and frames. I'm not to worried about resistance since it goes across the 30 foot length of my pool with just a very gentle push. I'm doing some research on testing stability with models but haven't devised any meaningful test yet. The mast is forward for the junk rig.

I probably really should qualify that last post as back in the day Taylor didn't wholsale directly to dealers and we purchased boats from a Mass. based outlet for Taylor in the States. Many of the problems we had with boats probably originated with the state-side reseller. When we talked with taylor directly these guys were up-front and first class but it was obvious that there were some 'reorganization' issues effecting production runs. We ordered 10 boats and received only 4 after two years of wrangling and finally gave up. By and large these all are very very good boats, very heavy in construction, far above average, even though the techniques varied from boat to boat.

We've posted links to the drawings at two other sites and so far the preliminary drawings have been download 417 times and we've received a little over 200 emails expressing interest in the boat. I've posted an updated lines drawing and will be posting the plans for cold molded wood construction next week if all goes well. We plotted the first of the full size frame patterns today and this sure makes building a lot easier than it used to be.
The entry for the 2010 Jester Challenge has been submitted and we're off and running.
In some ways I'm surprised at the overall interest in these little boats after all of these years but the popular mags still run articles about them especially in England.
I finally finished the cost breakdown based upon bids coming back in and I'll post this itemized table shortly but you'll be amazed at what it costs to build one of these boats today, makes used boats look like a steal at any price. Rogers has told me it would cost him almost twice as much in the U.K. as to what we've come up with here in California which is staggering. Mexican boats anybody? That might be the direction builders began to go if building costs get much higher. The auto guys did it. I'm not to impressed with the last Ford I bought with a mexican engine in it.

You'd think that after all of these years somebody would be making replacement fittings for a boat as popular as this.

I've had a fairly significant amount of experience with various 'castings' for parts and for a small run or a custom one-off it's usually cheaper and better to make up a stainless steel weldment of the fitting in question. If you can supply accurate dimensions almost any good fabricator can build a new SS stemhead for around $120-160, slightly more if you want some anchor rollers. We just received a quote of $240 for a pretty exotic stemhead fitting on the new 26's we're planning on building that has two rollers with fairleads for dual bow anchors.
I personally don't trust castings of any kind on a cruising boat as even the best can fail without advance stress warnings. I especially hate cast lifeline stanchion bases which corode from within until it's to late.
On the 26's the stemhead fitting is unfortunately used to cover up what it the single hardest area on a GRP hull to finish out. The easy way out is to bury the joint under a big 'fitting' that hides all the ugly stuff underneath as Stephan pointed out above.

You guys did such a great job on that boat. Have the new owner come over and let us know what his plans are.

I'm sure there are reasons that I can't see in the pictures but your particular mounting arrangement is like nothing I've seen or done on other 26's with a Monitor. Perhaps the Dorades were in the way of the normal mounting arms but on the boats I've worked on we mount the vane much closer to the rudder, about 6" higher than yours as shown and the downstruts were closer together and lower on the transom.
That's a really nice looking boat by the way. Even with your current vane mount there is still room for one of the little pop-up outboard mounts, they're only 10" wide.