just purchased 2000 Albin 35 with twin Cummins

[garyal1]

Just confirmed Purchase of the 2000 Albin 35TE located in Monterey California. This boat has been the topic of a previous post by Iwarden where he took it for a test ride in February. Although he did not purchase the boat, his thoughts and information truly helped me make my decision to purchase this boat.

Here is a cut and pasted from Iwarden's thoughts:

""""" Here is a little update:
The wife and I went to look at a 1999 35TE with twin 370hp Cummins this weekend up north.
The boat is being sold for the owner who has passed away by a couple of his friends. I was told the boat was in "pristine" condition, so was pretty excited to see it. Turns out it was pretty rough and not at all ready for a full sea trial. The boat needs a lot of cosmetic work to get to my level of OCD ownership, but the price they were asking was pretty reasonable, or so we thought....

The good:
It's an Albin 35TE
It's blue
It floats
The bad:
All electronics are old and need replacing
Boat needs a full new top and enclosure
Interior woodwork needs refinishing
Lots of corrosion on pumps, electrical connections and other things in the bilge
Needs new carpet (doesn't have wood floors)
Side windows have corrosion and need re-powder coating and re-bedding
Small oil leak around transmission on stbd side.
Steering was tight and quite a bit of corrosion on rudder posts/glands
Lot's of little thing need sorting out, cleaning, painting or replacing
The sea trial was disappointing. It was pretty cold but they had just started the boat when I arrived (unfortunately I didn't get to hear them start). The engines were smoking pretty good cold, smelled like un-burnt diesel not engine oil. Once they warmed up they were better, but still had a little smoke. They both sounded good, the port had about 1,400 hours and stbd had 1,700 as it was the one with the trolling valve. I asked for maintenance log but they didn't seem to have one or find it.

Anyway, when we had it out the boat was doing about 14-15 knots at about 1,800 rpms and that was where they said the owner typically ran the boat at. I asked to see it run up to WOT and then he put the throttles down. It got to about 2,700 and we were doing about 18.5 knots or so but after 30 seconds a buzzer went off and we saw the stbd engine up at 210F so shut them down quickly. The boat felt heavy and the engines seemed to be working hard. Pretty disappointing, but since the owner passed in October it looks like maintenance has slipped, so it could be as simple as a plugged pickup, strainer, or something in the cooling system which needs cleaning out. Also possible that the bottom and props are fouled. Needless to say I wasn't to happy about the long drive we made to look a the boat....

Now, normally I would just run from this, but there aren't many of these around and if I could get this at an attractive price it might make a fun project to do up as my wife and I like. The main thing I want to make sure of is that the engines are basically sound and there is no water intrusion in the hull. Other than that I can deal with the rest if I can get it at a good price.

One thing that I found strange on this boat was that the bridge layout was different from all the other 35TE's that I've seen. It was setup with the wheel forward and two strange short lounge seats on either side. It was a poor layout and something I would want to change down the road.

Anyway, I need to decide if this is worth pursuing putting an offer on and doing a more through survey.
I'm thinking if I can get this for a low price there would be enough headroom to do all the work and in the end have a good boat.
Should I run? Am I crazy?""""""

END OF QUOTES FROM IWARDEN

Anyway, this boat was a family deal. My brother in Law who passed last October bought the boat in 2004 from the Nordstrom family who had run the boat in fresh water on the Columbia River near Seattle and relocated it to Monterey where he used it for Salmon and Albacore fishing for the past 16 years. I just sold my business and retired at age 64 so this is my new job! Bringing this boat up to my standards.....

As Iwarden stated, it needs

albin2.jpg

some TLC! We had the full survey and haul out performed Thursday 7/2/20. The boat ran pretty much as I Iwarden outlined. Starboard engine creeped up to 205f temperature within a couple of minutes when set to WOT. Temp came back down to 185f when rpm was dropped back to 1700rpm. Before dropping it back we got to 27 knots and were still accelerating.... Other than that, all systems on the boat functioned, including the electronics and auto pilot. (I will replace electronics with a new Garmin package that I will transfer from my current boat while adding the Garmin auto pilot. I was told a working 2000 Ray-Marine package with dual screens, dual RL 70 units and a working auto pilot is valuable to someone who is still running this system as it is no longer supported from Ray-Marine.

On the haul out besides being dirty from no haul out in 3 years, everything was in very good shape. I plan to have it hauled, painted and serviced as soon as we get it to Stockton..

I got the family price on this one and I have plenty of room financially to go thru this boat, system by system and bring it back to top mechanical condition.

Besides bringing it back mechanically, I will be removing the diesel space heater and installing two A/C units as the boat will spend a lot of time in Stockton California heat. AFTER I get it back mechanically to where I want it, I will address the cosmetics. It already has electric downriggers and a VERY small live bait tank which will be enlarged so we can chase tuna with live bait.

I will post a photo once I figure out how to do so.

Very excited to be chasing my dream of fishing the coast of California from San Diego to Point Reyes! My first real boat! coming from a 1999 SeaRay Sundancer 270 with 1 engine, generator, vacuum flush head and A/C. Will post lots of questions and comments soon!

BR,

Gary

[Sisu22]

Congrats, Gary! Looks exciting. We also bought one that needed TLC but I don't have the opportunity to build my own boat, so I've enjoyed going through every system and upgrading everything to my standards. Lots of work but I've loved it. Looking forward to updates from you.

[go.boating]

Congratulations!!!

Take lots of pictures !!!!

Looking forward to seeing your progress

[Nancy]

Gary, that really seems like the perfect solution for this situation. Congratulations, and have fun on all the projects.

[lwarden]

Congrats Gary,
Glad to hear it went to a good home. Seemed the boat has good bones so since you got it for a family price that makes the deal even sweeter. Looking forward to seeing the pictures of it. PM me if you like, I'd be interested in how things went. And of course if you come down to San Diego I'd love to see it in person.

Laurence

[garyal1]

Dear All,

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement! I was even more happy with the deal I made when I got in touch with Boat US and Geico. They insured it for more than what I paid for the boat. They told me that was the low "blue book value". Of course, after we put a complete new Electronic suite for dual helms....the cost will be way more.

We were going to run it this weekend to SF and Stockton. but the weather forecast is not so good. Therefore we will wait a few days for a better ride up the coast. Meanwhile, tomorrow the local mechanic who maintained the boat for my brother in law is changing out both raw water impellers and both engine thermostats as these are past due changing and may possibly cure the higher temp we saw in the starboard engine at WOT.

This is just P.M. type maintenance. Once we get her to Stockton, we have a haul out scheduled to completely go over the hull, fittings etc. At that time we will inspect and repair as needed, BOTH cooling systems to bring them back to as new condition.

I will do another post about thermostats.....

[loganmj]

Congrats! Great looking boat you have. As an owner of a similar boat, I can attest you will never run out of things to tinker with. I did the full seawater circuit maintenance last winter (along with a lot of other stuff). I put cooler thermostats in than stock, and on the last run it was running a little warm (175 degF with 165 degF thermostats), at cruise (2000 rpm). I'm gonna put in new impellers this week to see if that helps (strainers were fine). I will be hauling out shortly to do bottom paint and will check strainer intake in case it is partially blocked.

[whwells]

Congra's on your fine. The 35te flybridge is very special. I was the owner of a 2006 many years ago and often
wish I have never moved on. The 370's Cummins were the best engines Albin used so you got the best.

Howard