New Member, 2000 Albin 28, Needs Electronics Advice

[dgurgel]

On October 18 I closed on a 2000 Albin 28 in Stamford, CT, and immediately moved her to Liberty Landing Marina, Jersey City. The trip across the Sound, down the East River, and around lower Manhattan to her berth within site of the Statue of Liberty will not be forgotten.

"Energetic" was formerly “Evergreen” and has a green hull. She likely will end up at Morgan Marina, Sayreville, NJ, for the winter. I spotted two other Albins berthed there and look forward to meeting other Albin owners,

With a clean bottom and 3/4 fuel tank, she sea-trialed at 22 kt @ 3900 RPM with 980 hours on her 300 HP Yanmar.

My son and I, both former Navy surface warfare officers, intend to use her to explore the LI Sound and Jersey shore. The boat has the sea-keeping and speed that I was looking for, but I want to upgrade the electronics. She now has her original SL70 Pathfinder radar and a 1997 A65 chart/plotter with RS12 GPS and DSM25 sounder.

My plan is to install a new C-120 (classic) chart/plotter with 125 GPS and DSM250 sounder. The C-120 will take my old radar. Does this sound like a good solution?

[RobS]

I don't have any experience with Raymarine electronics so can't help you there.

However, I too own a 2000, 28TE. Do you have this Yanmar gauge package? Did you have the engine photo-tached at the time of the survey? These tach's are known to read high. If so, 3900 on the tach could be more like 3700 or 3750. I have a photo-tach. At 4000 on the dash tach my actual engine RPM is 3820.

BTW, what is your hull number, mine is 408.

Enjoy the new boat, I know I am

[dgurgel]

Thanks, Rob. Surveyor was on board, and he had a photo tach. I was very pleased to get 22 kt. We were on LI Sound with 1-ft seas and 10 mph winds. We ran into the wind and then on reciprocal and got 22 kt SOG each way on two different handheld GPS units. That was pretty much the best I found on the Internet. My last speed-trial was forty years ago on USS Worden CG-18. We displaced 8,000 tons and did 32 kt. Worden (and the other members of her class) along with the Kitty Hawk class carriers were the fastest US, conventionally-powered warships ever built. My son and I are both former destroyer-men, and we love the Albin 28.

[Jack]

I am interested in the rpm level. I have a '98 Albin 28 with a '03 Yanmar 315. I usually run it at 3300 rpms and get about 19 knots under the conditions you described. That gets me about 4.5 to 5 gals per hour, which is wonderful. I have run a few times at higher levels of rpm but only for very short bursts and can get up to 23 knots or so at 3800. Lately, I have had so much growth on the bottom that I am at about 15.5 knots. Terrible. Had the bottom cleaned in August but we are getting a lot of growth on dinks and boats in the past 2 years in Huntington Harbor.
What is the correct cruising rpm for the Yanmar 315? What is the redline? None on my tach.
By the way, I got a lot of funny looks at work when they asked what I did that weekend in August. All I said was that I stayed home and scraped a lot of muck off my bottom.

[dgurgel]

Jack,

I have the 300 HP Yanmar in my 2000 TE. My engine nameplate is stamped with 3800 RPM (as max?). I have the Yanmar manual (free on the Yanmar site) for the 315, and it says 3800 RPM max for the 315 as well. I searched the web for cruise RPM and found a range of 3000-3400 from various Albin 28 owenres and reviewers. I could find no official Albin performance data. I am using 3100 RPM as my cruise setting for now. I am sure you know that a handheld tach to check your panel tach is a reliable $30 device.

On another forum I saw this data from 2005 from an owner:

6.5 liter gm engine . best cruise seems to be at 2800 rpm/14.6 kts and just about 10 gph. at 2600rpm looks like 9.0 gph and 13.5 kts. generally somewhere between 1.5 and 1.6 nmi per gallon
does that seem about right to folks with similar rigs?
the engine has just about 900 hours and i'm thinking new injectors may improve performance somewhat. any inputs appreciated.
thanks...
..
...yanmar 315 numbers with the same boat :


900 5.3 kts 6.1mph 20 0.8gph 5 6.63 mpg 7.63 787 0.0 74
1200 6.2 kts 7.1mph 24 1.3gph 8 4.75mpg 5.46 564 0.0 81
1500 7.2 kts 8.3mph 27 1.8 gph 12 4.01mpg 4.61 476 1.0 79
1800 8.3 kts 9.6mph 32 2.8gph 18 2.98mpg 3.43 354 3.0 83
2100 10.1kts 11.6 mph 38 4.2gph 27 2.40 mpg 2.76 285 4.5 84
2400 13.1kts 15.1 mph 50 5.9gph 38 2.22 2.56mpg 264 5.0 87
2700 16.8kts 19.3 mph 64 8.0 gph 52 2.1 2.41 249 5.0 89
3000 19.9kts 22.9mph 76 9.9 gph 64 2.01mpg 2.31 239 5.0 91
3300 22.9 26.3 87 12.1 78 1.89 2.17 224 5.0 92
3600 24.9 28.7 95 14.2 92 1.76 2.02 209 4.0 92
3800 26.2 30.2 100 15.5 100 1.69 1.95 201 4.0 92
Advertised fuel capacity 132 gal. Range based on 90 percent of that figure.
Performance measured with three persons aboard, full fuel, full water.
Sound levels taken at helm, in dB-A

[RobS]

Redline or High Idle is 4200rpm
Should be propped to obtain 3900ish fully fueled and loaded
The speeds posted above of 20knots at 3000 and 26knots at 3800 sure seem high to me.
Could be any combination of being over-propped and taking those readings with some help from the wind and/or current..
What RPM you cruise at should be considered based on your WOT rpm and that every hull/engine combination has a different sweet spot.
I turn 3850 and she seems to cruise best at 3200ish giving me 17.5 to 18knots

[dgurgel]

Rob,

The speeds that I posted by another owner seemed VERY high to me too. I am pleased with my 22 kt at WOT.

YANMAR 2007 6LPA Series Operations Manual on page 9 states:

"The 6LPA series engines are designed to be operated at maximum throttle (3800 rpm) for less than 5% of total engine time (30 minutes out of every 10 hours) and cruising speed (2800 - 3600 rpm or less) for less than 90% of total engine time (9 hours out of every 10 hours)."

[gtowens]

I have a 1996 28' TE with the GM Penisular engine. I get the following performance:
14.5 kts at 2800 rpm at 8 gph fuel burn
15.5 kts at 3000 rpm at 10 gph fuel burn
This is with full fuel and 2 adults and 2 children. We average about 2 Nm per gallon on every 100 gallons of fuel with idleing and cruising. This is also with a 3.5kW genset running the entire time. As the fuel load decreases the fuel burn at cruise improves.

Travis Owens
1996 Albin 28 TE, "Sea Boxer"