Can an A25 fit on a dry stack slip?

[nichampagne]

I'm looking in to future marina options and wondering if an A25 could be dry stacked. Like where a fork-lift places it on those shelf bunks. Or is there something about the shape of the hull that makes that impossible? Thanks for the help!

[DesertAlbin736]

Good question. The keel might be an issue, unlike I/O drives that can be tilted up. Why not just trailer store?

[nichampagne]

I don't own a truck and most Albins I look at don't have a trailer. I do realize one can be built for ~$6000. The added expense of buying a truck and trailer puts the idea of buying the boat over the top for me.
I live about 2 hours from where the boat would be kept and if its on a stack it would be less to worry about while I'm so far from the boat.

[kerrye]

I don't know how those dry stacks are designed. Can you look at them and see if there's a slot for a keel to fit? Seems like it might be something designed into some small set of the dry stacks so boats like the A25 could be accommodated.

[WillieC]

I saw this thread and I thought, oh boy, somebody has figured out how to run a dry stack exhaust on the A25! Aw, shucks.

As to the OP. Give them a call. Take some pics. Surely they can accommodate our boats. The ones I have seen run the forks longitudinally. Those guys can poke holes in anything!

[dkirsop]

I have seen it mentioned several times that you need a truck to trailer an Albin 25 - not so. You need a vehicle with adequate power, torque and suspension and many SUVs can meet this specification. I use a VW Touareg with a 6 cylinder diesel for towing my boat but there are other vehicles that could also handle the job (a Jeep Grand Cherokee comes to mind). Just make sure your trailer is equipped with suitable brakes and you are within the specifications of the vehicle's manufacturer.

In my opinion, nothing compares to the utility of the trailer. I have owned many boats over the past 30 years and to me this is the best arrangement yet. The trailer allows me to store the boat in my yard over winter, do all my maintenance close to where I keep my tools, avoid haulage and yard fees. Also, I can trailer the boat to destinations far afield that I likely would not get to without the trailer.

[nichampagne]

I emailed several dry stack marinas and so far the answer is no. My vehicle (Honda CRV) has no hope of towing anything near the weight of the A25. Also, I don't have space on my property to store the trailer. I wish I did because it would make everything you said much easier.

[kerrye]

Consider a storage lot. We have no space on our property either so rent storage spaces for about $40 per month. Even though we live in CO, we left our A25 on it's trailer inside a barn in NY so we can go back and do the Rideau canal next spring. $250 to store it in the barn all winter. Trailers expand cruising grounds so much I can't imagine how I ever boated without one.

[WillieC]

Buying a big enough rig for hauling was a bullet I avoided for too long. Fortunately I lucked into a decent rig my son's neighbor was selling for a little over 8 thou. Thus I sold my faux pickup and got a real truck, with a class 5 hitch already installed. It's all in the tradeoffs and your own cashflow, etc.etc. It's an older truck and maintenance and repairs may be onerous, but we don't pile on the miles, unlike others. Replacing the sun-cracked tires will be bad enough.

Finding a storage lot, as Kerry suggests, may well be part of the ticket. Are you a veteran? There are often storage lots on base for those good people. Maybe even a buddy? Inquire locally and you might be surprised. I have a 24 foot shop that I am trying to figure out how to squeeze the 25 into. Next project? Demountable mast and lights so I can grease it under the 10 foot door height. Or a tarp.

[Beta Don]

An older truck in good shape which is only used when you need a REAL truck (and not for daily transportation, which they are lousy at anyway) can last a very long time. My brother bought a 93 Dodge 3/4 ton with a 5 speed and the Cummins diesel about 10 years ago for $4,500. It hauled his 12,000 pound RV across the USA a few times, my boat a couple times, a car we bought in Indiana 1,000 miles home and literally tons of bags of Ready-Mix and at least a dozen pallets of sod when he was remodeling his yard. We sold it this year for $2,500. It virtually never got used for anything except hauling and we only put about 50,000 miles on it in those ten years

A friend of mine has a Ford Super Duty V-10 he bought very reasonably from an oil field supervisor. It looks nearly brand new, but has over 200,000 miles on it. Dave doesn't even start it unless he has something that either won't fit in his Jeep or is heavier than his Jeep will tow on his little 4 X 8 trailer. I suspect part of that is due to the fact that feeding gas into a V-10 isn't something you'd want to do every month anyway

Owning a dedicated, boat towing truck doesn't cost all that much, IMO

Most rack storage places for boats are not set up for boats with curved hulls, like A25's and A27's - They set flat bottomed boats on a pair of parallel 4 x 10's and a boat with a curved hull would have 100% of it's weight resting on a very small portion of the hull and none of it on the keel. I had a monster forklift at one of those places pick up my A27 in an emergency one time and there was plenty of cracking noises where the forks flattened out a part of the hull curve - Not something I would do again

Don

[WillieC]

Cracking noises...not good. Those curved hulls can make for issues. (Like not pulling the boat clear of the bunks before pulling the trailer out of the ramp. The low point was the zinc on the skeg. Lots of noise, but no cracking, and no damage. The poor fool this happened to had to back the trailer back down while hauling on the trailer crank, all the while listening to the zinc abrading on the concrete. All I, I mean he, could imagine was shredded rudder, folded prop, skeg popped out of keel. Nothing. Absolutely nothing hurt except where the zinc slid forward on the skeg shaft and removed its pristine bottom paint. AND the zinc slid between two of the blades on the brand new prop. That poor fool...)

[kerrye]

X2 on an older truck dedicated to hauling. I pull with a 93 GMC 6.5 diesel 2500. Rated to pull 10k lbs. Or if you're just pulling it for seasonal storage, renting a pickup for the day is pretty cheap. I did that with our Voyager 26 on a trailer when we first bought it and we didn't have a vehicle heavy enough to tow it.

[DCatSea]

You might also ask your marina if they offer an "In and Out" service, keeping your 25 on blocks when you don't need it, and hoisting it in when you do. This works as a pretty economical option for about 30% of the people where I keep Mazboot (not me, I hasten to add).

[nichampagne]

Ideally I'd like to find a marina that offers "In and Out" service, if I can find one along the coast in North Carolina. I haven't purchased a boat yet, but am trying to get a marina chosen in the case I find one.

[DesertAlbin736]

"In and Out" service for a boat on a trailer stored at a marina/boat yard would be the ideal situation in you case. Or, if it fit your budget, seasonal wet slip in a marina with winter haulouts via Travelift and on-the-hard storage blocked up without a trailer. Which, compared to what you'd spend buying a trailer vs slip fees and off season storage might not be that bad. It seems like those are your options, since you've found out that dry stack storage wouldn't work. Since you're in NC & only 2 hours from New Bern, there's not much need to do much trailering, since there's so much cruising you can do from there. The ICW and all of Pamlico River & Sound & Neuse River is right at your feet, unlike myself where aside from a few desert lakes the nearest ocean is 360 miles away. We have friends who spent a couple years living aboard a Gemini 105 sailing catamaran based in New Bern & they liked it there. I think if I were in that situation & could afford it I'd be looking at something along the lines of a Albin 36 or equivalent, or maybe even go back to a sailboat.