A25 Purchasing wisdom sought

[SalishAire]

My only comment as a new owner: We planned to swap out the steel trailer for an aluminum or galvanized one as soon as we pulled the boat home to Lacey where it will become a salt water boat. We quickly learned that there are no, nada, zip used good trailers to be had and the prices on the new ones are rising as fast as the price of diesel. Our plan is to keep at the original trailer with rust converter until the market normalizes then see what we can find.

[DesertAlbin736]

Norman & Clarice,
Great visit to DA HQ today! One way around rusty trailer woes is to launch via Travelift when possible. Enjoy sunny AZ & safe travels!

Being an Albin owner is about more than just the boating itself. It's also all the nice like minded owners you meet along the way.

20220316_143647.jpg

[Woody5]

Looking to squire Albin. 25 Delux. I see very few owners using the sail. Would I be better off without it?

[WillieC]

If you come from sailing and have room to store all the gear and are young enough to easily (?!) step the mast then have at it.

We do not, do, and are not, respectively. We do just fine without it. Your choice. Some say it helps with the alleged “snap roll” or for steadying under power. Meh.

[DesertAlbin736]

Would you be better off without the sail? Well, that all depends. We've tried using our sail rig on an extended PNW cruise (buddy boating with WillieC) & here's what we found: It's a chore to set up the mast (which why we switched to A25 pocket trawler from our Catalina 25 sailboat in the first place). But that's OK if you're in a position where you can leave it set up full time, like in a marina slip or on the trailer in a storage lot near a launch ramp where you don't have to go over the road to get there. But if you're like me and do a lot of "DA'ing" over the road it's not much fun & is more trouble than it's worth. Even though the hull design sort of resembles a sailboat hull in some respects that does not mean adding a mast and sails turns it into a true sailboat. It still lacks a ballasted fin, swing, or daggerboard keel. That means the rig must be undersized compared to a comparable 25 foot sailboat & does not "point" very well upwind on a close reach when purely under sail. Also means you need an assist from the engine to tack across the wind. In addition unless you use a small jib the foresail blocks a lot the view forward from the helm, up to 50%. For that reason we never used the jib/genowa & only set mainsail and even then only in fresh a beam or broad reach. From what I could tell it had a minimal effect on fuel economy since we always 'motorsailed' with the engine on considering how much drag our 16" prop would cause without the engine running.

That said, the pendulum effect does help dampen snap rolls in beam seas some, even with no sails up but better with the main raised. Still rolls some but not as bad as without the mast. Folks easily prone to seasickness might want to consider a different boat. Also having the VHF antennal up on top of the mast increases range somewhat. And it could serve as a back up source of propulsion in case of engine breakdown. But at best it's a 4 knot boat in a 10 knot breeze under sail without help from the engine.

Bottom line it's been said and is true that the Albin 25 with sail rig is a motorboat with a sail, not a sailboat with a motor.