The Saga of Beta Carina

[don123]

I bought a 27 FC in 2002, thinking I would retrofit it a bit and get back to cruising. I spent several years cruising my 33 foot sailboat, Alpha Carina and I really missed the water

Bought the boat in Phoenix, trailered it back to Biloxi on a huge trailer meant for a sailboat and got to work building a trailer specifically for the Albin. Got it on the trailer and out of the yard the day before Katrina swept the entire neighborhood clean. We lived on the boat on the trailer, inland in my daughters yard for a few months. Eventually, we bought another house (further inland) and the last several years have been spent working on that. The Albin was stored on the trailer, in a shed for the past 7+ years

Anyway, the 'project' is back underway after a lengthy delay. Thought I'd start this thread and update it as I go along. I have lots to do. New swim platform, extend the cabin roof aft to cover the cockpit, get the little 2KW diesel genset I installed to run the air conditioning running, rewire lots of things . . . . oh, and repower the boat too!

That's the first major step as the old 4D61 was frozen up - Not sure if it was that way when I bought it or not, but I always thought it would look and run better with a Yanmar in it, so I removed the Lehman and am now in the process of installing a 100 hp turbo Yanmar

Eventually, this boat is going cruising! - Maybe not this year, but next spring for sure, if not before

Don

[DougSea]

Quite the tale Don! Stories of living aboard before she's even in the water. I did that for 2 nights...months would be interesting!

I'm looking forward to following along as you bring her back to life and launch her.

Best of luck!!

[N4QC]

Good luck with your project...

What is the make and model of the 2kw diesel genset?

Have fun,

[don123]

The genset is a Phasor LP1, 2.2KW, 2,000 RPM unit. Weighs 185 pounds. It's also sold as a 3.5Kw unit, but the engine runs 2,800 RPM on that one. The little single cylinder Kubota puts out 4.5 hp at 2,000 and 7 hp at 2,800. The alternator on both units is the same . . . . only the belt drive ratio is different

I reinforced the starboard side platform in the engine compartment with epoxy, glass and a sheet of 3/4 plywood. The Phasor fit there perfectly with the 6 gallon water heater forward of it. I mounted a pair of golf cart batteries and a pair of 15 gallon Todd water tanks on the port side opposite everything to balance out the extra weight. Haven't floated it yet to see how that works out

Don

[N4QC]

Thanks for the genset info and a description of the install...

Have fun,

[don123]

Finally getting to where I have something to show for the past several months work!

This is the new hardtop - Rough sanding complete, one more layer of epoxy to add and then . . . . paint!

Don

[Nancy]

That looks fantastic, Don!

[Vic K]

Glad to see you are back on the rebuild. If you still have the 4d61 I would be insterested in the injectors and the fuel pump if you want to sell them. You can call me at 281 615 1586 of direct email vkopycinski@yahoo.com.
Vic

[DesertAlbin736]

Very cool! It appears our lives are running a bit in parallel. First of all, we live in the Phoenix area, ie the outer suburb of Peoria in the NW valley. I didn't know there had been any A27's in Phoenix. I've been sailing trailer sailers on Lake Pleasant & elsewhere since 1998. About the time you bought Beta Carina I had just bought a late 80s Catalina 22 wing keel sailboat after selling my Montgomery 15, and later in 2005 met & my wife & got married in 2007. In 2008 we sold the C22 and bought a Catalina 25. Besides Lake Pleasant, we sailed the C25 in San Diego for the summer in 2008 and again in 2012, during which time we sailed up the coast to San Pedro, harbor hopping with stops in Mission Bay, Oceanside, Dana Point, and Newport Beach. Then from San Pedro we sailed out to Catalina Island, returning in a 30 NM crossing directly to Dana Point and on back to our slip in Chula Vista on San Diego Bay. That cruise was 23 days afloat.

About that time we were considering going over to "the dark side", since being limited to Lake Pleasant was getting old, and we can't afford to keep a boat in a slip in San Diego full time and needless to say, mast stepping and rig tuning a Catalina 25 gets to be a chore. So after surfing Craigslist I saw an Albin 25 come up for sale, and we checked it out, going so far as to get a check ride on it. Up to that time I knew little to nothing about Albins, except that Albin was Swedish & made a sailboat known as a Vega. But that first Albin had a number of issues and we thought it was overpriced. The owner refused to make significant price concessions so we walked. It sold to another out of state buyer two weeks later, so we didn't get a chance to reconsider & pay the seller's price.

But that encounter piqued our interest, and I kept looking until we found the boat we've now owned since March of last year. We had a buyer for the Catalina within 3 weeks of putting it up for sale, and it sold in March of 2013. And since then we've trailered our Albin, "La Dolce Vita", all the way up to NW Washington State, a distance of over 1,600 miles one way, and cruised the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands for 40 days.

Now I'm working on my own hardtop project as we speak, and building teak opening hatches for it, that while not finished yet, will look like this example photo picked off the internet.

Oh, and I have a cousin who lives in Bay St. Louis, just down the road from Biloxi. His home is 200 yards from the shore, and got flooded 12 ft deep with storm surge during Katrina, but otherwise survived intact. So he lived in a FEMA trailer for 18 months while his house was being rebuilt. He still lives there. He works for the Naval Oceanographic Admin at the Stennis Space Center office building.

[don123]

Very cool! It appears our lives are running a bit in parallel.

We do seem to have a good bit in common

And since then we've trailered our Albin, "La Dolce Vita", all the way up to NW Washington State, a distance of over 1,600 miles one way, and cruised the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands for 40 days.

Our first sailboat was an O'Day 25 that we bought in 1984. I ditched the outboard and installed a Yanmar 1GM10 single cylinder diesel in it. In 1986 when I retired from the Air Force, we trailered it 2700 miles from Biloxi to NW Washington State where we spent 6 weeks cruising Puget Sound, the Hood Canal and the San Juan Islands. We trailered it back home, eventually sold it and upgraded to an Endeavour 34 which we sailed between Biloxi and Florida for several years

Oh, and I have a cousin who lives in Bay St. Louis, just down the road from Biloxi. His home is 200 yards from the shore, and got flooded 12 ft deep with storm surge during Katrina, but otherwise survived intact. So he lived in a FEMA trailer for 18 months while his house was being rebuilt. He still lives there. He works for the Naval Oceanographic Admin at the Stennis Space Center office building.

We had approximately 30 feet of water in our old neighborhood and we lived in a FEMA trailer for more than a year while we got our 'new' house habitable . . . . our old neighborhood is still nearly deserted - Very few people have rebuilt there because the new flood elevation codes require houses to be 12 or 15 feet off the ground . . . . 22 feet above sea level

Your project is coming along nicely - Mine still has a long way to go, but we're committed to starting our Great Loop adventure in October, so it's full steam ahead on the boat every day until it's done. The wonderful 70 degree weather is sure helping!

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

A couple of dear friends of ours in our sailing club have an O'Day 25 with a Yanmar 2GM diesel with sail drive. Our Albin 25 was repowered in '92 with a 24 HP Yanmar 3GM30F. We shared a 7 day charter cruise with them and another couple in the San Juans on a Juneau 41 out of San Juan Sailing in Bellingham back in 2011. We flew up there for that one.

We are hoping (fingers crossed) to take our boat all the way back East this summer after Memorial Day. Some other friends from the club have a big old beach house on Long Island Sound in Westerly, RI that they inherited from their grandparents . They live in Phoenix and rent the beach house out during the summer to cover taxes and expenses, but they've invited us and a few others come out and stay for a week in mid June & only share in the cost of cleaning service for that week. So we thought, why not make it a road trip with the boat and do the Erie Canal on the way out, then after Rhode Island head down the East coast to points further South (trailering from place to place) and do some ICW like down on the Jersey coast (my original home town where I grew up is Barnegat, NJ) and maybe the Chesapeake. Not sure how much further down we would go, but who knows, maybe Gulf Coast on the the way back if we went as far South as I-10.

I joined the Navy right out of high school, but didn't stay in to make a career out of it. I retired in 2010 after 25 years with Arizona Public Service electric co.

[tego]

Don, Your hardtop looks great! My admiral decided she didn't want an extended hardtop after all. She likes the sun. Actually I was relieved,as I can't picture doing any good casting with my rod under a full hardtop. Not to mention the fact it was a whole lot less work for me. I'm going to keep the mold I was working on in case she changes her mind again tho. My next big project is getting a trailer. I'd like to get over to the Chesapeake in one day instead of two months! If you had 30 feet of water in your neighborhood, why the heck do you only want to rebuild 15 feet off the ground? Did you mean your water level was 30 feet above sea level? If you get another one of those mothers, you'll still only be able to see your roof. Good luck. Hope you get everything done so you can get on the loop on schedule. Are you going to go to Mobile or New Orleans? If you do the Ten-Tom, give me a holler when you get to the Memphis area, as I'd like to see your boat! When you live in TN, we don't get to "socialize" much with other Albins of our size. Ben