New Member Introduction from Juneau AK

[akroger]

Hi Everyone,
I was excited to find this group and am really looking forward to reviewing many of the threads. While I am new to this group, I am not new to Albin boats. I am the second owner of a 1977 25’ deluxe and have now had the Dawn Treader for over 25 years (# 2497). Our boat is home ported in Juneau Alaska (Aurora Harbor) and now that I am finally retired I am able to spend a bit more time maintaining and cruising on her and next year I hope to move her to Pelican.
A few of the “highlights” I have done over the years was to repower i.e., removed the old MD17C and replaced it with a MD2040 and last year I finally replaced the cutless bearing and replaced the stuffing box seals. Future projects include trying to find glow plugs for the original Espar cabin heater, replacing the existing hardtop roof, and getting the original refrigerator working.
At times, it has been a challenge to maintain my Albin 25, especially without a resource such as this Albin owners group to ask questions. So, imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon this group and can now pick everyone’s collective brain! Already this group has inspired me to make some improvements and to fix a few things.
My first questions to the group: 1) does anyone have kickers on their A25 and if so what size outboard; 2) any recommendations with towing a skiff or inflatable behind A25; and 3) any good designs for replacing hardtop roof.
Thanks,
Roger

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[Mark Deeser]

First off, welcome to the form. Good looking boat and it sounds like you are taking good care of her. Hope you enjoy retirement as much as we have, planing on some extended trips on our 27 FC. Sorry can't answer your questions but there a number of 25 owners here, enjoy.

[WillieC]

Welcome aboard, Roger! You will find plenty of help and ideas on the forum, for sure.
Can't say much about a kicker other than the storage of gasoline is worrisome to me. A backup plan, though, is always a good idea, but always adds complexity. I am more for having the parts and pieces on hand for repair. The pistons aren't likely to blow through the cylinder walls, but a water pump impeller will shred itself at the most inopportune time.

As to the hardtop, you likely had the old BC fiberglass version like ours, heavy, ugly inside, and a bit too low. Were I starting from scratch I'd go with wood and then seal it up with glass. With a little creativity, you could make the inside look like an old Monk cruiser. Hira Reid, on Shatoosh, now for sale in California if not already sold, had a clever chart rack incorporated into her ceiling. Plan in wire chases for cabin lights, and whatever else you may like, maybe speakers. Pay close attention to making it easy to remove, even if takes a hoist. Mine has puny 1/4" bolts that have to be cut off so you don't hit them (as often) and they are a pain to align (not that you are frequently removing it.) The wiring to the mast lights, horn, gps antenna is a mess on mine and will be part of my next project. A terminal strip for wire (dis)connections is so obvious that it baffles me why it wasn't in the original plan. Make real raceways for wiring, not an undersized, ragged fiberglass tube with no thought for access.

The mast with its lights really should be hinged if you ever plan on storing it in a garage. That is a project in itself, but is another no-brainer. All this thinking makes me want to start from scratch, but I know it is a major project. There is a great project of a fellow building his own wood hardtop, but the name slips me right now, the one where four guys end up carrying it down the boat ramp. Others will recall and I'll spend some time later looking it up. Today's project is reinstalling the straightened shaft, new flex coupler, new prop and hooking up all the cables. Splashing soon! Cheers!

[WillieC]

http://www.albinbc.com/technical/member ... ai-hardtop Nice side access I would also like to incorporate in any new top.

http://msbettencourtsnewtop.blogspot.co ... lmost.html
(This is the one I referred to earlier. Poke around on this site and you will find the whole hardtop project.)

[DesertAlbin736]

Welcome aboard Roger,

I'm a big fan of the Pacific NW, having cruised our A25 in the San Juans & Gulf Islands twice over the past three years. Hope to get back up there again next summer. Juneau, and all of SE Alaska for that matter, is beautiful too having seen it only once via Princess cruise ship 10 years ago.

Anyway, as for your questions, we don't have any kicker motor permanently mounted, just a Tohatsu 2.5HP outboard that we carry along for our Gig Harbor Nisqually 8 foot f/g dinghy.

And on the subject of hard tops, it just so happens I have some experience with fabricating a new hard top for our boat. I went whole hog and made one as a foam cored fiberglass layup, 3/4 inch thick with two opening teak hatches. It's a real job, but it can be done if you have the intestinal fortitude to tackle such a project, and you have to have a work space that can be temperature controlled to above 70 degrees. The trick is to make a one-off mold by using a piece of 1/2 inch styrofoam board insulation material as a pattern, both for the horizontal shape and the vertical curvature. Then use that pattern to build a mold out of lumber and masonite sheet. This assumes that we're talking about a hard top that only covers the wheel house roof opening, not an extended hard top that covers the wheel house and cockpit.

Previous to this a prior owner had made a "pop top" of translucent acrylic plexi, which was OK in some respects, but had a tendency to blow open while trailering down the highway, and in any case was never completely water tight. One day it blew open on the highway and broke into three pieces. It looked like this.. (note: a little trick with this website is that by clicking on a photo you can view and enlarged version)

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This example is the frame of such a mold before adding masonite. In the left background of this photo you can see the styro pattern leaning up against the wall

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Then add the masonite, and in this case the frames for hatch openings.

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Then cut & stage the materials, gel coat, f/g cloth, chopped strand mat, and diviny cell foam core, in layers to be added...

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Apply gelcoat release agent (PVA), suit up and go for it, being sure to use a respirator & eye protection. Having a large assortment of C-clamps and bar clamps on hand helps.

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Once the layup is complete & cured, pop out of the mold, then build hatch covers (hatches optional)

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And voila, finished hard top. Note that this piece matches the curve of the wheelhouse roof.

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In our case I through bolted the top on 8" centers around the lip of the opening using countersunk #8 machine screws and sealed with 3M 4200 adhesive sealant. 4200 is the removable kind, NOT non-removable 5200, in case it ever needs to be removed in the future for any reason, like say engine removal.

Finished piece installed looks like this, with a 20 watt Siemens solar panel mounted between the hatches..

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From the inside it looks like this.. The hatches are strategically placed so I can stand at the helm & stick my head out through the hatch.

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As for towing dinghy or skiff, we prefer to carry ours on lift davits. We learned from hard knock experience that mounting a dinghy down low on snap davits leaves it vulnerable to being torn off by passing wave in rough water, since anything over 6 ft long over hangs the transom. You're no stranger to rough conditions, I'm sure.

Here's what we had before last year, in which this dinghy was wrecked and lost in Georgia Strait off Nelson Island in BC.

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This is what we have now, Gig Harbor dinghy on Garhauer lift davits.

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[akroger]

Thanks for the warm welcome and thank you WilleC and DesertAlbin736 for the great information on design options for my hard top. Some very creative and talented people in this group. Also thinks for the tip on the dingy. I used to have a small inflatable on top of the boat but just too cumbersome to launch and retrieve easily. I did mount a kicker bracket on the boat years ago and had a 15hp outboard on it for trolling and for emergencies but repurposed the outboard to a skiff. It was nice to have but never had an emergency where it was needed
.
Thanks again for the support and I look forward to cruising the groups archives.