Powering an A-25 with a 2.2hp Mercury 2-cycle

[nebulatech]

Nice dingy! Is that a centerboard? Usually only see those if there is a sailing kit available. Perhaps there is?

[motthediesel]

I have an incomplete sail kit for it. Spars, sail (a little ratty) but no dagger board or rudder. The guy I bought it from had another complete one, so he gave me cardboard patterns for those bits, so I should be able to complete it.

[DesertAlbin736]

Motthediesel,

You mentioned that:

My wife and I have been traveling to the US Southwest from our home in Northern NY for the last few years. We tow our old Avion trailer with our Dodge/Cummins, and we carry a Grumman Sportboat on the truck for our water explorations.

And, about your dinghy...

I have an incomplete sail kit for it. Spars, sail (a little ratty) but no dagger board or rudder. The guy I bought it from had another complete one, so he gave me cardboard patterns for those bits, so I should be able to complete it.

Just so happens our former dinghy, a Canadian built Boatex 8 which we lost off the BC coast in 2016 (another story), came with a sail kit which I still have. My new Gig Harbor dink is the rowing version, no daggerboard slot or provisions for mast mounting or rudder gudgeons. But I still have those sail components, including daggerboard, rudder, spars, and a sail in pristine like new condition. The sail luff is the sleeve type that slides over the mast, no hanks or sailtrack. So if your travels bring you anywhere near Phoenix and like to drop by I'd be glad to make an OBO deal on them. There are RV camping spaces with hookups at Lake Pleasant, 15 minutes from my house, nice place to camp & take your boat out on the water. Right now I'm in the middle of some projects on my A25, otherwise I'd offer a boat ride on La Dolce Vita. This week highs are in the 60s to 70-ish and lows in the high 30s to mid 40s.

This time of year on Lake Pleasant you'll see scenes like this:

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Here's what it looked like rigged up:

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The daggerboard (solid gelcoated fiberglass layup) is 38" long X 10" wide X 1/4 to 5/16" thick & looks like this. The deal with the bar clamps is that at the time this pic was taken I was in the process of rebuilding the dinghy's daggerboard slot which had been delaminating:

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Now that my current dinghy is row/motor only, I have no more use for the sail rig.

On getting towed, this is the most fun way

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to be towed by a boat like this (when the old dinghy broke loose, capsized & ended up jammed against the rudder with the painter fouling the prop, these folks answered our PAN-PAN and came to our rescue, but again, another story)

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If stopping by here doesn't work out, maybe we could bring them along next summer on our triangle loop cruise & stop by your place if you're interested.

[motthediesel]

Sorry, but we're not going west this Winter, we've got a lot of projects cooking at home, (including on our 27FC ) so we're going to forgo a vacation this time. We've never been to Lake Pleasant, but I know right where it is. We have spent a good bit of time on the Salt River reservoirs, and that is some great boating for sure. Canyon Lake is a big favorite of ours, here's a shot of our Sportboat there during a lunch stop last March. Have you ever splashed your A25 there?



I don't know how many of your dinghy parts would work on the Grumman. The rudder and dagger board may or may not, but I'm sure the sail would not work, as the Grumman uses a gunter rig.That's handy because all the spars are short and they will store inside the hull.

Tom

[DesertAlbin736]

Oh well, just a thought. Hopefully we'll get a chance to stop by your place this summer anyway. Lake Pleasant is the only AZ lake we've used our Albin in. But we have gone camping & taken our inflatable kayaks out to Canyon Lake. Those lakes are too small to bother with the Albin. In the the past I've taken my Monty 15 to Roosevelt Lake. Otherwise we have Lake Pleasant 15 minutes from home vs 135 miles to Roosevelt or 190 miles to Lake Havsu, or 260 miles to Page & Lake Powell. Not that we mind trailering long distances obviously, but Powell, Havasu, and the Salt River lakes are hot in the summer, & the idea is to escape the 110 deg heat in the summer.

If you go on the Montgomery boats home page, that's me in the M15 boat with the tanbark sails, #102, on Roosevelt Lake in 2003. That same boat I trailered to Delaware & NJ in 2002 & sailed Chesapeake Bay then trailered up to my original home town of Barnegat, NJ & ran the Barnegat Inlet, then later that same summer (thus sailing Atlantic & Pacific oceans with the same boat in the same year) & again in 2003 raced in Potter Yachters sponsored fun races off Monterey, CA (won 3rd place both times), and of course sailing out to Catalina Island from Marina Del Rey.

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http://montgomeryboats.com/

[motthediesel]

With the Sportboat we went all the way up to Horse Mesa Dam on Canyon Lake. It was many beautiful miles and made for a good full day on the water. It got a little shallow and bony near the dam, but you could get your A25 most of the way there. That road in there to the ramp might be a bit of a challenge, but there’s other big boats on that lake.

We hope you do stop in to say hi if you get on our water this Summer. Right now, we still have no ice, maybe we’ll have open water here all Winter?

Tom

[NickScheuer]

Made the move yesterday; got an old (1950's) Evinrude 3hp Lightwin. Talking small motors at our monthly Power Squadron meeting earlier this week a friend said he wanted to get it our of his garage. He had bought it a couple of years ago, along with a Evinrude 8hp from another longtime member of the group.
It should be perfect for emergency power for our Albin-25 as well as for powering our 8ft pram at our annual Power Squadron Dinghy Day river tour. Normally I row our pram to take our dog ashore on a cruise, but these Dinghy Day outings require more speed in order to keep up with everyone's inflatables and RIB's.
Knowing the original longtime owner as we do, we can be assured that the Lightwin has never been abused.

[motthediesel]

Those are great engines -- very smooth with their two tiny cylinders. If you read any of the Robb White books, he had one (on his Sportboat) and loved it. We have the Johnson version and we keep it on our Oday Daysailer, it has never failed us. To OMC people, it's know as the "Last of the Tin-tops" -- they stuck with the all metal engine covers there long after everything else went to fiberglass and plastic.

Tom

[NickScheuer]

I appreciate the background info, motthediesel. I'm thinking I'll suggest that others on our annual Dinghy Day doff their headgear when looking at the motor, out of respect, ya'know.

[motthediesel]

I appreciate that!

My Dad was a Gale (OMC’s bargain line) outboard dealer, so those old smokers are dear to me.

Tom

[NickScheuer]

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Didn't have this photo available when posting earlier. Except for one healthy-size dent in the top cover, the motor's paint and general condition is top-notch considering its age. It's twenty years older than our 1976 Albin-25! The lower motor cover panels are off in the photo.

[motthediesel]

Here's ours kicking "Key Lime Pi" through the mangroves on one of our trips south a few years ago. Please save the "Little Johnson" jokes, I've heard them all my life.

[NickScheuer]

I'm sure glad I got an Owner's Manual with my 1950's Evinrude Lightwin. I had asked the seller what the oil/gas ratio was and he said "50 to 1" So I'm think some more about that today and seemed to remember that the old motors needed a much richer oil mixture. Sure'nuff, the manual says 1 pint per gallon of gas; that works out to 1 to 8, or 12.5%. An old Johnson 5hp I once had back in the 1970's (old when I got it; I believe it was the first model to have a forward/reverse shift) used a 25% mixture; at least that is what I was told at the time. Sure glad my seller never used this motor much; he's obviously got newer model motors in mind. I'll caution him to check out the correct mixture for his 8hp Evinrude. It's got a newer style top cover, but maybe not new enough for 50/1.

You called the old ones "smokers", motthediesel, and at 12.5/1 I can understand why.

[NickScheuer]

BIG OPPS! Reread the manual and it really specifies ONE-HALF pint per gallon, which works out to 25 to 1, like the old Johnson 5hp I used to have.

[motthediesel]

Yes, and you can probably go to 30 to 1 with modern oils and be OK. I wouldn't push it to 50 to 1, though some folks do. I sometimes add a little caster oil too, if I'm nostalgic for that authentic "model airplane smell".

Looking at your picture again, I see you even have a genuine OMC stand for it, very nice!