sailing performance

[Tony]

Hi all. I've been lurking on this site for a while now while getting to grips with my A25 sailor. My dilema is that I feel the boat does not sail very well without the motor ticking over. As soon as I switch the motor off, I lose steering, and weather helm just keeps trying to round the boat up where she loses most momentum.
I have noticed via pics that the mast was stepped in 2 different places, either in centre of coachroof or right in front of the helm windscreen. Mine has the latter and was wondering if that was a mistake during manufacture? Any advice on this prob would be welcomed. (any mods or sail trim etc worth trying)
many thanks in advance
Tony
As I`m not too sure how this site works properly, I apologize if I posted in wrong section.

[jcollins]

<moved to A23/27 forum>

[JT48348]

Tony: I think you are expecting too much from an Albin 25 with a mast configuration. This boat was not intended to be a sailboat or a true motorsailer. It was intended to be an auxilary sailer. An auxilary sailer is a boat where the sail helps the engine, or provides a steadying motion, or emergency propulsion to get back home. This boat is not a true motorsailer and it definitely isn't a sailboat. If you read the A25 manual and in particular the notes on installing and rigging the mast you will see it's not intended to go to weather very well. You may be hanging too much sail, or trying to sail too close to the wind.

In general, I have seen the placement of the mast to be just forward of the pilothouse windows, not on the roof. I read somewhere that someone once tried to create a metal/fiberglass arch to act as a mast step. The idea was to move the mast aft so it improved the balance and took advantage of the relativley short keel. They also changed the transom of the boat and modified the rudder. The fact is the keel is not very deep, or very long along the length of the boat. Running the engine lengthens the keel for the purposed of sailing.

I would submitt to you, this boat is desgined to use a sail in conjunction with the motor, at a reach or running with the wind.

[DesertAlbin736]

Tony I agree with JT48348. I have that exact same configuration on my 1971 A25. That is with the mast step just forward of the windshield. Pictured below is the spec drawing of that setup. However, while all the sailing gear did come with our boat when I bought it last March, I've not yet attempted to step the mast. My biggest fear would be slipping and damaging the windshield when trying pin the butt of the mast to the step. The previous owner had the boat for 12 years and never did install the mast either. Being a former sailboat owner of a Catalina 25 I can't imagine that adding a mast and sail to an Albin 25 would accomplish much more than helping dampen the roll rate and hardly worth the effort in a case like mine where I don't keep the boat in a marina. In fact I would have been just as happy had the boat not had a mast in the first place, since the whole idea of getting this type of boat was to be able to trailer to distant cruising destinations without necessity of stepping a mast yet having fuel economy like a sailboat under power. If I'd wanted good sailboat performance and didn't mind stepping a mast I would have kept our Catalina.

[NickScheuer]

Speaking as a lifelong sailor (65 yrs) I was never interested in trading my 28-ft yawl for the sailing A-25. I could plainly see that the A-25's sailing performance would be disappointing for me. We like our Diesel A-25 a lot. It was time for a change.