suitable trailer for my 25?

[realslimshady]

I am hoping to trailer my 1970 (series 1?) 25 from UK to Portugal once my house purchase goes through. I have been offered the loan/rent of a heavy enough trailer to carry it, my only concern is that it is a 'roller' type and there is not much keel support.
I will try and attach pictures. I have asked for dimensions from bow stop to the keel rollers.
I'd like to know what you regular draggers think.
Cheers

[honza]

For keel support you can just install a heavy plank for the full strait length of the keel - as long as the cross members are strong enough. Good heavy-duty sets of rollers are expensive and hard to find. You can use them for stern support, which is very useful, if launching and retrieving at shallow ramps. The front sides of the boat hull, can be supported by some kind of blocks. The rollers and blocks will need strong, about a foot tall supports.

[tribologist]

Here is mine without the boat. If it was me i would laminate up side bunks from plywood or wood that i would bolt to the side rails. The best way is if you can start with a 2x10 or 2x12 board for the keel. Lay down the boat with a travel lift, support it from tipping with boat stands while you fit the side rails.

Once its in portugal, send the owner a check for it and keep it. Its absolutely awesome to be able to trailer it. (Ask DessertAlbin).

[tribologist]

How wide apart are the side frame rails?

It might be as easy as laying a profiled board on top of the rails and secure it with vertical wood bolted through the frame

[tribologist]

Few more

[tribologist]

The bunks are 34” out center of keel to center of bunk. They are 24” over the keel bed plank at the very end and 17” above in the front. You can see here how they are laminated up. The bottom planks are tapered so the height could be adjusted

[tribologist]

By the way. Check the age of the tires and take apart and relube all bearings. It looks like that trailer has some years on it. You need a proper jack, wrenches, jackstands or wood blocks with you. Spare tire too. I just had a tire fail on sunday so i had to swap in my spare. It was only 5 years old but had the belts fail. Few days earlier i had a bearing failure from a failed seal. I had overhauled that axle less than two years ago. Look at the difference between the images how the crown has different curvature. Its about 1/2“. out of round. It went from running silk smooth to shaking my trailer apart in about 20 miles

[realslimshady]

thanks for all the input guys, but nobody has really addressed my concern- i.e does the boat need keel support under the engine or will the rollers at the side be ok? I can probably put something together if necessary, but it's not my trailer, won't be my trailer and I can't get boat and trailer together until shortly before departure.

[WillieC]

My trailer has no keel support but four bunks situated to carry the serious bulk of the boat. There is also a roller at the front where the front of the keel bears to some degree. Mostly it serves as a stop.

IMG_3060.JPG

This trailer is used for yard hauling mostly, but we have taken it over the road. It is not for serious DAing, (this is becoming a thing, Steve. Get used to it!). It is undersized because we sorely misunderestimated it from using the google for weight guesses. Plan on 6 Large for the boat loaded. (We also trusted the salesman who sold us the trailer who promptly lost his job shortly after selling it to us after we took it back for a brake issue. They love first time boat owners... we haven't been back since.)

As to your question about rollers, others use them and love them, but I like the bunks for distribution, avoiding point loading. Using rollers indicates to me full keel support.

It hauls fine, just a bit weak. I may put another axle under it and DA better. It requires a steep ramp, just not so steep it overwhelms your truck. Careful, careful.

[tribologist]

thanks for all the input guys, but nobody has really addressed my concern- i.e does the boat need keel support under the engine or will the rollers at the side be ok? I can probably put something together if necessary, but it's not my trailer, won't be my trailer and I can't get boat and trailer together until shortly before departure.

I would personally not use that trailer as-is. It does not have proper load distribution. To work well and share load they need to be set up like a whippletree. I would think you are going to end up resting it on only a few rollers as it looks. The rollers are way to low anyway so no matter what you do you need to modify it

[tribologist]

thanks for all the input guys, but nobody has really addressed my concern- i.e does the boat need keel support under the engine or will the rollers at the side be ok? I can probably put something together if necessary, but it's not my trailer, won't be my trailer and I can't get boat and trailer together until shortly before departure.

I would personally not use that trailer as-is. It does not have proper load distribution between rollers. To work well and share load the rollers need to be set up like a whippletree. I would think you are going to end up resting it on only a few rollers as it looks. Actually, it looks like the rollers are way to low anyway so no matter what you do you need to modify it. The keel is 18” under the hull in the middle and even more before the rudder. If you support it further in you will need less height but to me it looks like that trailer is set up for a V-hull like a cigarette or something. Is it possible to use a board for the keel? Are you hoping to pull it using the trailer or are you taking it out with a crane or travel lift?

[tribologist]

The swedes are the kings of strange trailers. Here are some from the Albin25 ägare facebookgroup. They dont fo much DA’ing there

[tribologist]

Imagine how these would handle behind a mini SUV... the blue one had about 100 lb on the ball...

[WillieC]

That's how they do it in the Old Country. Yikes!

[dkirsop]

The general configuration of the trailer is close to what I currently have - 4 sets of roller bunks each with 8 rollers. I added two sets of keel rollers - each set provides two rollers for support. The following photos show my configuration.

Front Rollers.jpeg

Rear Rollers.jpeg

Trailer.jpeg

I noticed the trailer you are considering has two adjustable keel rollers and a fixed rear keel support. I would recommend that the keel rollers be at least 12" wide to allow centering of the keel when retrieving the boat from a ramp.

It is not clear if the trailer is equipped with brakes. Good trailer brakes are an absolute requirement for towing this boat. And as others have said it is essential tires and wheel bearings be well maintained and in good condition.

I am not a big fan of bunks for the Albin as they are limited to good ramps and ideal conditions. I switched to rollers because many of the ramps in my area could not facilitate a successful launch or retrieval using bunks. I have no complaints with my current configuration.