Hello BYYB guy's  My name is Keith,  Yes another Keith,Ever since I ran accross the Vacationer plans I have been looking all over the internet for this site. I knew that with all that the Vacationer and Weekender had to offer there had to be some type of support group. I have soooooo many questions.  I am intrested in building a Vacationer with some modifications. I have built a 1/12 scale model and can already see some things I may want to change the first is to round out the bottom down to the bottom of the existing keel and install a steel drop keel. Has anyone tried this?
I'm not sure about your experience, but you can't make arbitrary changes in this fashion. Making Vacationer a V bottom will dramatically increase it's displacement. Not only will it not float where you think it might, but all the structural elements need to be redone, to absorb the changes in load dynamics.
If your changes are sufficiently different enough, you should consider another design. There are literally hundreds (thousands actually) of boats in this displacement range. V bottoms, round bottoms, flat bottoms, arc bottoms, you name it.
The Vacationer is amendable to many alterations, but leave the hull form and underwater areas to those more experienced in these sort of things.
No offense is intended, but just building the boat is hard enough, without wiggling your way through a host of modifications, that have questionable value or unknown potential outcome.
The most radical change I once considered was to attach weights to either side of the keel. I changed my mind when the thought of water migrating through the attachment bolts, might rot my keel. The vacationer will heel pretty far in a stock config, I scared myself once, and had the upper rub rail under water, she didn't go turtle though.
Greg