Albin Owners Group

SamNassar wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 10:48 am After sailing the New England coast for over 25 years on my Tartan 37 sailboat, spring and fall commissioning duties and dealing with boatyards and covers etc, I sold the Tartan. During those years I made many friends through boating, after the sale I started looking for a trailerable, double berthing, separate, for traveling with friends, that I could bring home and store in my barn. Traveling @ 6-7 kts was fine. I have always been “handy” around engines and helped my friends with their engines. The Albin 25 seemed to be just what I was looking for. Last fall I found one that had been sitting in a boat storage for several years not used because the engine was removed and the owner didn’t want to replace it. The shrink wrap was brittle but it still functioned enough to keep the elements off. After meeting the owner on the boat, I sensed he was stand up guy that relied on someone to winterize his boat but it wasn’t done properly. Looking around inside, I noticed that everything was there for overnight coastal cruising. He pointed out a couple of custom features of the boat, but I was more interested in him being the kind of person who would take care and do things properly. We talked about how he was loosing the storage and the boat stands were such that loading it onto a trailer would be difficult. I made an offer knowing the difficulties that moving it would entail and he agreed. I found a boat hauler that would try and he did get the Albin up and delivered to my farm in New Hampshire. Since it was fall, I left the shrink wrap alone for the winter, but set out to find a trailer and an engine. I found a Yanmar 3 GM30F, take out with the cylinder head removed for inspection. Bores looked good so I bought it and put it back together with new gaskets, after making a run stand, I connected it all up and ran it on and off for a couple weeks.
The original boat hauler has a used boat business that had a suitable trailer which I bought too. Before winter, I emptied everything out of the boat, literally a time capsule of a boat ready to go back in the water and go. Galley complete, safety complete, mooring complete, canvas complete, interior and cockpit soft goods in good shape and complete. The interior woodwork is very nice, I have heard some stories of interior wood work needing lots of work/replacement, not here. All and all I think I just got lucky, I had no idea what I was looking at related to other 55 year old Albins. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. This spring I put the boat into the barn and with a overhead winch I messed around with setting up the engine mount location, I had an idea to make the propeller shaft in two pieces with universal joints and a thrust bearing, after mocking that up and buying all the parts and machine shop work, I lost confidence in myself. My life was as an apple grower not an engineer, if I made something and it work out, I could just go back to the shop and make it work somehow. My confidence that I could design and build a drive system first time that would be safe and reliable faded last month. I have ordered a new 1” shaft and Yanmar coupling that will be conventional Like most other Albins.
This summer I realized that I can’t really use the boat the way I was expecting because of health issues in my life and extended family. For me, the aging difficulties between 76 and 77, have been more than I expected. I lost physical strength and I have less tolerance for frustration and as I mentioned, less self confidence. Not a good combination to have when boating in Maine.
The boat is not a financial burden to me, and I have plenty of storage space on the farm, but I don’t want it to languish there forever not being used.
If someone wants to take over the boat from me and finish the job I will be open to that. I have about $5000 into it that I would like to get back.