Repowering the Albin 25

[Tod C]

Would like to hear from any A 25 owners who have repowered with a Beta 25 or 30 hp engine.
Any observations welcome, especially how did you like the results turn out, and what are your impressions of the Beta engine, about which I've heard only good things.

[jcollins]

Hi Tod,
I can only second what you have already heard. The Beta is a good replacement for your boat.

Good luck with the repower.

John

[glk34]

Tod, the repowered unit in our A25 was a Perkins Perama, about 30hp. It was done in 1995. While it was the previous owner who installed it, we like the perkins. It is quiet, fuel efficient, gives us a top speed of 8kts and cruise 6.5kts at 2700rpm. I don't know much about the Beta but have some info on the perkins. Lots of farm tractors used basically the same 3 cyl perkins engine for years. It might be worth looking at. Fits in the A25 engine well nice.
Tell us more about Blue Hill Maine-it is not far from New Brunswick. What about your boat? How long have you had her?

Chris
"Iron Jack"

[leprof31]

I wonder about the speed. My old MD3B (1900 RPM) get my boat at a speed between 8.1 to 9.1 knots depending the river St-Lawrence current (In Quebec) and I found it a bit slow, limit... at 6.5 it would be a lot too slow for me. The A25 seem needs at least 36-37-38 HP to get the 8-9 knots cruising speed... but someone told me that a new 30HP (Yanmar or Nanni) would bring it at 8-9 knots without problem. I think I'm a bit conduse about powering the A25!

[Tod C]

Thanks guys. 8 - 9 knots sounds high for cruising speed from what I've heard of the A 25's. We'll see. Actually we won't own the boat for about 6 more hours. The owner is trailering it to BH today from southern Maine. The addition of the Albin will round off the fleet at 10, a situation causing some raised eyebrows around here. Most are canoes and dingys, so not to worry. When you remove all these from the picture there are only two boats of note, the Albin to be, and and Island Packet 29 cutter - so you get the idea we're going over to power from sail. A sign of the times, our times. The Albin looks to be very original, except for the motor and attached parts - the present owner is a mechanic which I hope is a good thing.
Blue Hill is a little town at the head of Blue Hill Bay, adjacent to Penobscot Bay, and Mt Desert Island. A scenic cruising destination , and this part of the coast is one of the finest cruising grounds for a small boat .

[Phoenix27]

Question? Would putting a prop on an albin 25 with a larger pitch say a 17 or 19 pitch give more speed than a 15in pitch at the same RPM ? 6.5 knots seems kind of slow .The boat now has an MB3 17C engine 38 Hp .Thanks Phoenix27

[leprof31]

the pitch is the distance made with one revolution by the prop...19 = 19 inches for one revolution... but more pitch, will mean less diameter... it is around 200 rpm by inches... if at max your engine should turn 2400 rpm... and you change your prop, you have to calculate to keep the same revolution at max. The top speed should be the same... if you made a mistake with the size of your prop, you will go under the max revolution at full throttle (as indicated in the engine manual), or over! It is not a good thing.

[Woody]

As I understand it, with a displacement hull, there is an optimum cruising speed' called 'hull-speed' which is the maximum efficient speed for a given hull length. Pushing it any faster than that will use a lot more fuel for a small speed increase. There's a good technical explanation of hull speed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_speed.

According to the calculator at http://www.psychosnail.com/boatspeedcalculator.aspx I get a hull speed of 6.3 knots for the A25. This is just the speed we get with our Westerbeke 27 running at 2700 rpm (which the previous owner called the 'fast cruise' speed). This is also the engine speed referred to as the 'sweet spot' for this engine. As we purr along at this sedate speed, being passed by other boats throwing out huge wakes, I'm thankful we're only burning a couple of liters per hour!

[hetek]

Joe DeMers at Sound Diesel in Connecticut is a Beta dealer AND has repowered an Albin 25 with one. He even has an article about it with photos on the Sound Diesel website under "repowers". Joe would be my "go to" guy with any Beta questions. And he owns an Albin 25 also.

"Hull speed" really doesn't apply to our 25/27 Albins (unless you have one of the earlier full displacement hull 25's). My Albin 27 FC with a length waterline of 25' has a theoretical hull speed of roughly 6.75 knots. Yes, my sweet spot for cruising speed is 6-7 knots, but my boat can max out at 8.5 knots. How? It's a SEMI-displacement hull. And I only have the 61 hp Lehman. Some A27's have been clocked at 14 knots (with a Cummins 210 hp).

Horsepower rules over hull-speed at this point. Is it efficient? Not really, but it can do it. I hear the later year Albin 25 Deluxe models can really get up and go with only a minimal increase in horsepower.

- Jon B.