Anyone heard of a Bonum 25?

[DesertAlbin736]

On our cruising in San Juan Islands we stopped one day at West Sound Marina on Orcas Island. Parked there in their boat yard on a trailer was a 1984 Bonum 25. Will post some pictures when I get back home in a few weeks. Well guess what, a Bonum 25 is just an Albin 25 Deluxe with a re-designed cabin trunk! Still the exact same same hull with center cockpit-pilot house-aft cabin layout but with different windshield & sharp corners on the cabin instead of the usual rounded edges. As if someone used the Albin 25 hull molds but came up with their own new cabin trunk mold.

[jcollins]

According to this article Bonum bought the molds after Albin stopped producing the boat in Sweden.

(translated)
http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... 26num%3D40

[DesertAlbin736]

Finally got around to posting those long awaited photos of the Bonum 25 sighted on a trailer a few weeks ago at West Sound Marina, Orcas Island, WA. However many Bonum 25's were sold in the US, this has got to be one of the few surviving examples. Note the similarities and differences from the usual Albin 25's we all know and love. Same hull, same style pulpit & stern rails, same teak dowel cleats but very different doghouse and windshield. I peeked inside the wheel house (didn't get pictures of that), and all things considered I think I prefer the original Albin 25's helm station. The wood work in this boat was neglected and in sad shape, and the Sunbrella enclosure was on its last legs. All the marina manager knew about this is that the owner was saving up for a re-power job, so I must assume then that whatever engine it came with is kaput or missing. According to the hull ID on the transom this is a 1984 model.

[BonumMan]

I am the owner of this soon to be beautiful boat! It made me sad to see these photos but happy that she has the potential to be a boat to be proud of. I am in the process of repowering with a Yanmar 3JH5E. There is lots to do and with limited funds I'm trying to do as much as possible myself. I also prefer the original helm station and plan on rebuilding with respect to the boat and a more useable station. The woodwork in the cabins is in fairly good condition with some pieces needing some work. The boat was purchased from the original owner, one of few importers and it was his demo boat with just 70 hours on the engine and boat. Unfortunately it was not winterized or rinsed and sat often with the salt water in the raw water cooling system. After lots of money and hours tearing down and rebuilding the top end of the engine trying to repair cooling problems I gave up. Sadly sitting to end up in the condition she is in now. She will be back to life this spring with a little luck and then I will start to work on her appearance. New canvas or altered hardtop with vinyl curtains. Any advice or help in the coming days will be greatly appreciated. I'll try to post some photos as she improves.

[DesertAlbin736]

Bonumman,

Nice to hear from you and glad that you're in the process of bringing this boat back to life. When we took those pictures of your boat in 2014 we had stopped at the West Sound Marina in search of a new raw water pump for our Yanmar 3GM30F, seeing as how West Sound Marina is an authorized Yanmar parts dealer. Our raw water pump bit the dust just as we were leaving Blind Bay anchorage on Lopez. The pump impeller had shed a couple vanes and jammed the pump, which tore up the pulley and scored the shaft. Lucky for us we were only a short distance out in the channel, so we used our dinghy to push the boat back to a mooring by that little state park island and dinghied over to the ferry landing and took the ferry over to Orcas to pick up the part at the marina. But the warehouse in Seattle had sent the wrong version of the pump, one meant for the saildrive version of the engine, which was different from our conventional prop engine. We called up Tri-County Diesel Marine in Bellingham and they had the correct part in stock. But guess what? There is no direct ferry service from the islands to Bellingham, so we had to take the ferry (inter-island ferry to Friday Harbor, then switch to the Anacortes ferry), rent a car and drive up to Bellingham to get the part. Over $500! Ouch! Otherwise we would have been stuck for several more days waiting for the part to be shipped UPS. The folks at Tri County Diesel are great. Personally, I wouldn't even bother with West Sound. Call Tri County first, they're much more knowledgeable.

So anyway there we were walking around the West Sound Marina grounds when we spotted your Bonum, which was quite a surprise. If you hadn't obtained an engine already I might have suggested going with a Beta/Kubota engine instead of Yanmar. Yanmar is a good engine, but their parts policy sucks. I'm just finishing up a rewiring project and installed new AGM batteries and a 3 stage smart external regulator for the alternator. But Yanmar alternators are basically Hitachi units which are N field regulated instead of P field regulation (it's complicated if you're not already familiar with the difference). Problem is you can't disconnect the internal regulator and make it work on the external regulator alone, so both have to run in parallel. The point is AGM batteries need to have reduced voltage charging regime in float mode when fully charged, otherwise you end up cooking the batteries and shortening their lifespan. Problem is with the stock 14.5 volt regulator it overides the external regulator in float mode. My only option is to upgrade to a $400 alternator that can accept an external regulator and leave the stock internal regulator disconnected.

Anyway, as far as canvas work, if you have the time and a modicum of sewing skills I would check out Sailrite.com. You could save yourself a ton of money making a new enclosure yourself, which is what we did in the first few months of 2015.

Last summer we did a major cross country road trip back East, trailering the boat and cruising the Erie Canal and Chesapeake Bay. That's another story that I've written about and posted pictures on this site. This coming summer we hope to make a return to the San Juans and Gulf Islands and try to make it as far as Desolation Sound. Would be great of you had your boat ready for cruising this summer, and maybe we'll see you, or at least stop in at the marina and swap stories.

You should be here in Arizona this week, the high almost set a new record for this date, got up to 86 degrees & sunshine. Almost too hot to work in the boat cabin. Haven't seen rain in weeks.

[BonumMan]

I am beginning to grow curious. Am I the only one in the US with a Bonum 25? I have been looking and they can be found in the Netherlands, of course. I found one in France and a couple references to them on other sites. Does anyone in the community know of another here, in North America?

Thanks, Ben

[Beta Don]

I'm just finishing up a rewiring project and installed new AGM batteries and a 3 stage smart external regulator for the alternator. But Yanmar alternators are basically Hitachi units which are N field regulated instead of P field regulation (it's complicated if you're not already familiar with the difference). Problem is you can't disconnect the internal regulator and make it work on the external regulator alone, so both have to run in parallel. The point is AGM batteries need to have reduced voltage charging regime in float mode when fully charged, otherwise you end up cooking the batteries and shortening their lifespan. Problem is with the stock 14.5 volt regulator it overides the external regulator in float mode. My only option is to upgrade to a $400 alternator that can accept an external regulator and leave the stock internal regulator disconnected.

I ran into this problem back in my sailboat days - My 34 footer also had a 3GM30F engine and I was using the full Xantrex Freedom package which required an externally regulated alternator. I installed this system on 6 or 7 boats in our marina and nobody wanted to go with $400 alternators

What I discovered (because I drove one) was the Hitachi alternator from an early '70's Datsun 240Z was a bolt on fit for the engine and was already set up for external P field regulation - The car came with an external regulator mounted on the fender well. Best of all, they were about $40 rebuilt from the local Autozone - After ordering 6 or 7 of them from the same store, the manager reminded me that they come with a one year warranty

They're rated for 50 or 55 amps but even switched 'full on' they only put out about 40 or 45 amps, but I used one to charge two banks of L-16 400AH batteries and it worked very well - For just $40, I always carried a spare just in case

I believe Yanmar went with the N field regulators because when the regulator failed leaving you with zero charge capability, you could poke a nail in a strategic hole on the back of the alternator grounding the field which would safely turn the alternator full on, enabling you to continue until a proper repair could be done - You can't do that with P field regulated alternators

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

Don,

I think I'd be better off upgrading to a true marine alternator like the ones Mark Grasser sells via Marine DC Solutions...

http://markgrasser.com/products.htm

Though expensive, he's less than getting a Balmar through Defender or other suppliers.

Why? Because a) I've upgraded to three group 27 AGM batteries, b)although most local use is just weekends, we also do long term coastal cruising like our trips to the San Juans where we're on the boat full time for weeks at a time and mostly anchor out, sometimes on the hook for 2 or 3 days between runs, and c) AGM's have a much higher bulk charge acceptance rate that would likely stress a 20+ year old 55 amp alternator, even with external regulator. If we had a sailboat that only ran the engine a few hours here and there it would be different, but we sometimes make runs of 30 miles or more in a day at 6.5 kts. We've put over 200 hours on the engine in just the past 2 summer seasons. We do have a solar panel, but it's just 20 watts & barely 1.6 amps, or less than 10 amp hours output per day. Enough to stretch a charge by a couple days and keep the batteries float charged in storage, but not enough to keep up indefinately. In between trips the boat is kept stored on the trailer with no access to 110V AC power to keep the batteries up.