A25 trailer mods for picking up my new boat sight unseen

[WillieC]

Oh the places you'll go! Best of luck and be safe!

[DesertAlbin736]

@DesertAlbin736 - The boat currently has a 3 cylinder Yanmar which apparently runs but not under load.

That's good! Worth investigating & correcting the problem whatever it is, up to & including a rebuild. Definitely not the original engine, since the earliest A25's had Albin's own in-house built engine, the AD21, and later models had various versions of Volvos. What model number Yanmar? Ours is 3GM30F, mid 1980s vintage. I'm not much of a diesel guru, but sounds as if assuming it has good compression then perhaps some type of fuel issue, filter blockage, fuel pump, injector pump, injector timing? Hopefully something minor. Ours, which is around 1986 vintage, has at least 3,500 hours on it, including over 600 hours we've run it since 2014 & still runs like a champ.
Yanmar 3GM30F installation (rough looking air inlet horn since repainted).

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I've wanted one of these for years, since I crewed on a trip up the ICW and saw a meet-up of several Albins (not sure if they were 25, 27 or a mix) in Beaufort, NC. It's about the smallest size boat for my needs, and about the largest I can tow. I have two young children. I'm hoping to give them some great memories.

With two young children sounds like you'll be more in local weekend cruising mode. These boats were designed with that in mind, with the aft cabin as sleeping space for kids.

This from the original sales brochure

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Some of my best memories as a kid was going out fishing with my dad in his boat on Barnegat Bay in NJ.

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Here's ours anchored in Tod Inlet, Brentwood Bay, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada this past July

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[dkirsop]

The A25 is a great boat for family cruising. We cruise with our grand kids each summer. The smaller ones usually like to play in the aft cabin and sleep forward. This is ok with us as the aft berths are slightly longer than the fore berths - not by much but enough to make a difference for this tall guy. Also we can have a light on to read for a while before settling down without disturbing the kids.

That picture of the family in the Albin poster is a real hoot. They clearly searched for a vertically challenged family. So much for the myth of the tall manly Swede!

[WillieC]

Vertically challenged! Gotta love that! (But accurate. I smack my forehead at least once a day heading into the galley. At least I am learning.)

[DesertAlbin736]

Duck! What? BANG! OUCH!

[tribologist]

Here is some pictures of my trailer. I think you should create a full length keel bed. No need fir carpet but it has to be sturdy. The bunks has to be about 22 inch over the keel towards the rear end.

If I was to redo it i would put the bunks on the crossmembers right against the I beams. E.g the wood bunks would be where the bunk supports are now. Alternatively let one of the 2x12 rest on crossmembers and the outer ones on the I beam. That way they overlap.

Bring a chainsaw with a small bar. Don’t bother about pressure treated wood. There is no way you get it as good as you like the first time around. Building it up with layers of 3/4 plywood on top on one bunk would work to.

[DesertAlbin736]

For all the frustrations & expenses I've had to deal with on our trailer I'm grateful to the deceased former owner, a Canadian from Ontario by the way, (the one prior to the folks in Idaho we bought from) for the way he set it up. And when I say expenses I meticulously track all the money I've ever spent on boat & trailer, breaking out various categories since we first picked up the boat in March, 2014. Money spent just on trailer repairs and upkeep since then totals $5,388.83. The biggest chunk is for weld repairs & frame reinforcements, $1,890. The rest is for general routine upkeep such as tire replacements, grease & seals for the hubs, brake repairs (new surge brake master cylinder, turning two disc rotors & replacing two others, two new calipers & pads), replacing two lost winch handles, and miscellaneous tail light wiring. Of that, only $300 was for shop labor when we had a caliper work loose in Illinois on the way back east in 2015. All the rest of the work was DIY. But you know what, I like to keep up on PMs because I hate breaking down on the road, especially when crossing the desert & mountains in temps over 100, when even something a simple as changing a flat tire is a miserable experience.

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In any case, the carpeted bunks run from approximately the middle of the forward cabin window all the way to the transom, and the keel supports most of the weight on double rollers at each frame crossmember. Plus the frame is aluminum, the brakes are Kodiak disc brakes, and suspension is torsion bar/swing arm. The only real downside with the bunks extending that far is that it would be difficult (but not impossible I suppose) to sling launch & retrieve with a Travelift. Then again, in ramp launching with an aluminum trailer rust is not an issue as long as the brakes & hubs are thoroughly flushed with fresh water.

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Even better, bunk heights are fully adjustable, allowing bunks to fit the curvature of the hull & drop down to pull the trailer out from under the boat to block up "on the hard".

That said, biggest issues I've had to deal with were the stress cracks in the welds where the first cross member attaches to the I-beam frame at the angle where it tapers toward the hitch and frame flexing at that angle. But this trailer is now 20 years old with many thousands of miles racked up, which includes the over 20,000 miles that we put on it, plus the distance from south Florida where the trailer was built & sold and towed with the boat on it to that previous owner's home in Ontario, Canada and thence out to Idaho when it was purchased in 2001 from the estate of the Canadian owner after he passed away . Those Idaho owners took it out to the Gulf Islands at least once, and made several trips from their home near Pocatello, ID to Lake Powell.

And if we go through with our plans for next year, that will add a round trip distance of 4,770 miles over the road to western New York state & back.

[honza]

Looking for some Christmas stuff, I bumped into my wobble roller installation photo. It is not and easy measuring situation. Happy holidays.

[tribologist]

LOL! look at the curtain rod. The middle rod mount is loose... Three Town beer is still made but now it ~5% alcohol The kids got their own can as it looks. Back then is was only 2.5% if sold in regular stores if I remember right...

The A25 is a great boat for family cruising. We cruise with our grand kids each summer. The smaller ones usually like to play in the aft cabin and sleep forward. This is ok with us as the aft berths are slightly longer than the fore berths - not by much but enough to make a difference for this tall guy. Also we can have a light on to read for a while before settling down without disturbing the kids.

That picture of the family in the Albin poster is a real hoot. They clearly searched for a vertically challenged family. So much for the myth of the tall manly Swede!

[DesertAlbin736]

And they had ABBA playing on the stereo

[derekja]

DesertAlbin, about how long are your bunks?

I need to modify a 24' (overall) double axle trailer to hold my A25.

I'm considering grabbing some rollers to weld onto the trailer on some posts to get the right heights.

Not sure how to compare the advantages of bunks and rollers, though.

(edit: offending C word external link removed! Sorry! )

[WillieC]

The founder of AOG respectfully requests we don't link to the C word. Thus the altered spelling.

Carry on.

[DesertAlbin736]

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and our Canadian friends are enjoying Boxing Day today.

derekja asks,

DesertAlbin, about how long are your bunks?

I need to modify a 24' (overall) double axle trailer to hold my A25.

Scaling from this photo estimated length of the bunks (2X6 pressure treated boards) is about 16 feet, +/-. Going forward beyond that, at least with this design, the hull tapers toward the bow too sharply for the bunks to follow. Overall the trailer from hitch to taillights is about +/- 30 feet.

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A few feet forward of the bunks there's still support for the keel via rollers on the first cross member. That first cross member is where the problems with cracked welds occurred. Here's an example of cracking in 2014 shortly after we bought the boat.

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Then the first $740 repair job held for awhile up until last year. Gussets added on the inside and plates added on the outside of the I-beams.

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But alas, those ended up cracking too. Too much bounce stress over 1,000s of miles of rough interstate highways given the tongue length between the trailer hitch and the first cross member, combined with the inherent weakness at the bends in the I-beams.

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So hopefully now the second & fingers crossed final repair and reinforcement will hold. The I-beams are "boxed in" on inner & outer sides with 3/8" thick plate from 5 feet ahead of to 5 feet behind the angle as well as an extra U channel cross member added behind the winch tower, and the winch tower cross member itself reinforced with 4" wide steel U channel. All that for $1,100. Smokin' deal for some primo quality welding.

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[derekja]

Thanks for all the details!

[nebulatech]

I survived.

First, a huge thank-you to all who took time to share advice and photos. I ended up doing something similar to Dieselram94's photo, installing temporary curvature at the stern of the bunk boards. I added a keel board as honze recommended, and ended up using a 2X12 as per dkirsop's recommendation, which was fortunate because the sternmost part of the keel was right on the port edge of the keel board. Had I used anything less, the keel would have landed on the axles. Using the lofting lines in the images provided by DA, I was able to approximate where to move the bow post in order to keep the engine over the axles and avoid the keel from touching the keelboard where it drops down to protect the prop. I also installed a single keel roller at the first cross member aft of the bow post.

There was no bow eye on this boat. There were also no bow or midship cleats. Fortunately, I invested in the largest ratchet straps available at Lowes, about 5,000 lbs hold-down each. I ran one over the cockpit where the hull tapers aft, with the thinking that if the boat tries to slip aft, it will wedge itself in the strap preventing further aft movement. The other I ran over the coachroof under the teak grabrails, where the hull tapers forward, with the same idea. While at the boat ramp, I made a quick spacer to fill the void between the bow stop and the hull. This lasted less than 2 miles. Oh, and the single metallic 'ping' I heard about this same time? I've since found out that was my Craftsman 1/2" ratchet, 1/2" - 3/8" adapter and 1/2" deep well socket I was using to adjust the bow post position. I left it on the trailer, which was my workstation. Goodbye forever my friend. I HATE loosing tools. That's what I get for working at 11:30 at night in the rain after driving 8 hours to get a boat and spending 5 hours towing it, putting it on a trailer without power and playing carpenter at the boat ramp. One more antic; at one point, I asked the seller to pull my Sequoia up the ramp a foot or two so I could see if the keel was landing on the keel board. In his struggle to find the emergency brake release peddle, he must have popped the hood, which I noticed only after climbing a steep ramp to go over a bridge (shown below in the background). Just one more thing to add to the nervousness of towing the largest load I've ever pulled, in a foggy drizzling rain, over a huge narrow bridge, with a questionable towing configuration, and of course after having lost my trusty ratchet, a friend of 20+ years. Let's just say I only made about 50 miles of headway that night, average speed of 35 mph, before checking into a hotel.

The rest of the trip home proved uneventful. The sun came out the next morning, the hotel provided a complimentary cooked-to-order breakfast. I maintained an average speed of 55-60mph and somewhere near 9 mpg. I must say that even as robust as my trailer is, this boat is quite heavy and bounces up and down a lot. I'm beginning to understand why DA's trailer required such substantial reinforcement given the distance he has traveled.

I have since installed a bow eye with a 12" long teak backing block I made from wood in stock at the house, and visited my local ramp to put the boat on the trailer correctly. Having the bow eye allowed me to straighten out the keel and it now lies closer to center on the keel board. The bow eye is only temporary, as the thickest I could find locally was 3/8". I plan to install a 1/2" or 5/8" in the future and glass in my backing block. I will also be installing a bowsprit and a windlass so the forward storage will become an anchor locker because I love the perfume an anchor rode contributes to the accommodation after it's sat overnight in the intracoastal waterway, absorbing its share of the rich microbiological menagerie.

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