Albin 25 Deluxe. Repower or sell?

[Foreverunstopable]

Our A-25s MD17C finally gave up the ghost after 38 years of service.

Were trying to decide on repowering or selling as is.

What's the going rate for 30 - 40hp repower on the west coast of Florida?

[Treeman]

Repower! Or better yet, REBUILD! Even if you bought a new engine it would be a tiny fraction of what a vessel of similar utility and economy would run, if such a thing even exists. There's a MD17C on E-Bay with 750 hours for $3,950 OBO. I'm just finishing a rebuild on my AD21. More than worth it IMHO.

[denchen]

If you buy a fresh boat, how long will the engine last. Better the devil you know.... Ive just put a new gearbox to my 1976 engine because I trust the engine. If repair is not possible, then a good 1800cc or 108 cubic inch as you guys know them, 4 cylinder diesel should give you around 37 HP at about 2500 revs. Smoother than the original Albin and less than half gallon an hour on fuel. To marinise some engines is quite easy and not too expensive.

[Robdog.1]

image.jpg

Or, buy mine!
240 hrs on the Yanmar, runs beautiful.

[Foreverunstopable]

Easy Victor is a nice A25. We had a chance to look at it up in Jacksonville. Who ever buys is getting a good deal.

Want to trade?

[don123]

What's the going rate for 30 - 40hp repower on the west coast of Florida?

A friend put a new 30 hp Yanmar in his sailboat last summer up on the Chesapeake. The engine cost him right at $12K and the installation was $2500 more. His Shannon would probably sell for right around $50K if he put it up for sale tomorrow

If you're thinking no A-25 is worth a $15K repower, you're probably right - At least, not unless you plan to use it LOTS over the next several years. The $4K used engine sounds promising. Assuming it cost you another $1K to have it installed, the valuation of your boat with a good running engine would *probably* be at least $5K more than what you would get if you sold it as is, so you wouldn't be spending money you'll never get back . . . . especially if you intend to use the boat for another few years

Don

[NickScheuer]

If you repower, I'm in the market for a used transmission to fit an MD17C. Will be on Florida W coast in March; I could pick it up. Might take whole engine/tranny off your hands for parts.

[Mark Deeser]

This may sound like crazy talk, and it may well be. I have thought if the engine in my 27' Albin ever failed I would look at going electric. We have a 15 person ferry (state run) here on the St John River, pilot said the motor was five horse power. He said they recharge it overnight, has two solar panels on roof of unknown wattage was told it was in use for a twelve hours per day, no recharging. What if you installed small diesel, twenty horsepower or so running a generator, possible four large six volt golf cart batteries for day use. This tied to a ten to fifteen horsepower electric motor would most likely be all that is needed, or go crazy and add 100 watts solar. Seems to me you would have a system with plenty of power, that would operate on peanuts, and except for batteries could last as long as you do. This type of set up is starting to pop up on sailboats, no noise, no smell, no vibration, sounds like a cruisers dream. I'm sure there are many far more knowledgeable than I who can see the pitfalls in this plan. To my retirement quality brain it sounds ok. Thanks for listenings to the rantings of an old man.

[don123]

Let's do the math - As Richard Dreyfuss so famously, said, "you're gonna need a bigger boat!" . . . . well, at least you're gonna need a LOT more batteries!

One horsepower is about 750watts. To run a one horsepower engine for an hour requires 750 watt hours - A 10 hp engine would eat up 7,500 watt hours

A pair of 6 volt golf cart batteries in series will provide 12 volts at 200 amp hours and then they are dead, dead. You never cycle deep cycle batteries below about 30% state of charge if you want them to live for another day, so 70% of 200 amps is 140 amps. 140 amps times 12 volts is 1680 watts. You can get that for about an hour, so 1,650 watt hours

Lets suppose you had ten sets of golf cart batteries instead of just one pair . . . . Twenty 6 volt, 200 AH batteries in total which would give you 1680 usable watts times 10, or 16,800 watts. This would run your 7,500 watt 10 hp motor for . . . . a little over two hours and if the 10 hp electric motor would power your A-27 to 5 knots (it probably wouldn't, BTW) then you could go 10 nautical miles in about two hours before it was time to recharge

The recharge - Assuming you plugged into a 120 volt outlet at the nearest marina, you could expect to get 15 or 16 amps of 120 volt power from that outlet, which is about 2,000 watts. To recharge the 15 Kw you used in your 2 hour cruise would require 7 to 8 hours and then you could move on for another 2 hours and go (possibly) another 10 nautical miles

You could double that to 20 sets of batteries (40 total at about 50 pounds each, or 2,000 pounds of batteries) and they would cost you about $4K and *maybe* last you 3 or 4 years depending on usage before they would need to be replaced . . . . and then you could go maybe 20 nautical miles before you'd need another very lengthy recharge

Solar? You could fit about six or eight 5 amp solar panels on the roof of your A-27 (assuming you extended the roof all the way to the transom) so on a good day with full noontime sun you would be making 40 amps at 12 volts which is 480 watts. Your solar panels would require about 30 hours (of noontime sun) to recharge the 15 Kw you used on your two hour cruise

Long story short - What is 'semi-practical' for a sailboat which can go 90% of the time on sail power alone doesn't necessarily translate very well to a cruising trawler which requires engine power to move it 100% of the time . . . . at least not if you plan to go very far

It does work a little better for an electric car - I own one which has a 16 Kw battery and that will take me about 75 miles, depending on terrain, speed and driving habits. With a 240 volt, 15 amp charger, I can replace that 16 Kw in about 6 hours and be ready to go again - We usually do that overnight

Don

[Nancy]

Re: battery charging - I saw a Tesla for the first time a couple of days ago in Chicago - very impressive. I was told it has a range of 265 miles & recharges to 80% in an hour. I think it uses a 220 amp charger? Or was it some kind of 220V converter, but plugs into a standard outlet? Impressive technology whatever it is.

[Mark Deeser]

Don123, thank you and Richard Dreyfuss for your factual reply pointing out the errors in my idea. But to double down on an ill-conceived idea, would like to present the following. I went on line this morning and found four hundred watts of solar in a four panel set up off the shelf at Home Depot, complete kit, wiring to controllers , the total cost $ 1,425. I do not feel these would be the cutting edge in current solar development. Next I looked at a 5000 watt Honda generator with a claim of 15.5 hour run time at one quarter out put, burning 4.5 gallons of fuel, cost, $ 3,600. I did a very small amount of research and located a used electric motor from a fork lift, which owner said he sold a lot of these to people wanting to power homemade electric cars, for four hundred dollars. Is it possible that the 5000 watts from the Honda plus the 400 Watts from the panels could negate the need for the twenty or so batteries, the cabin top extension, plus the need for a larger boat. It seems to me that any new idea is fought tooth and nail, it's only human nature to kill what ever is different. It would be so refreshing to find people with a high degree of knowledge who could see new ideas and possibly show ways it could be done, rather than all the reasons it will not work. Please do not view this post as a tit for tat kind of thing. Let's try to think more like Dr. Emmitt Brown, in Back to the Future. Just the ramblings of an old man.

[don123]

Mark,

I'm 100% for electrifying any type of transportation wherever practical . . . . I own an EV after all and it's what we use for about 90% of our daily needs - It's many times more efficient to be creating energy at your electric utility on a mass scale rather than using millions of inefficient internal combustion engines to power things. Depending on your particular car/truck/boat, only 15 to 30% of the energy you get from burning your fuel is actually used to move the vehicle - That means 70% or more is wasted. I'm certainly not trying to shoot down you idea - Rather, just trying to give you an idea of what you may be in for, cost wise

Yes, a 5Kw genset would allow you to use fewer batteries and go further - But consider you're trading a pretty efficient diesel engine for a not very efficient gasoline powered generator. If you have a 5 Kw genset, you're also going to need a 5 Kw battery charger and a pretty sophisticated one if you want your batteries to last. The charger is likely to run you $2500 or so

If your idea is to switch from diesel to gasoline generated electric power to move a boat, you're taking a pretty big step backwards. Whenever you switch from one form of energy to another, there are built-in losses. Your 13 Hp Honda engine loses efficiency when you convert from it's mechanical energy to electric power. When you convert the generators AC electric power to DC power with the charger to power your DC motor and charge your batteries, you lose more efficiency. When you run that DC power through a motor controller to adjust the speed of the forklift motor, you lose more efficiency yet - Hooking your 13 Hp Honda directly to the prop shaft would probably recover 20 to 25% of all the losses you incurred by switching forms of power so many times - Forgetting the Honda and going with a 13 Hp diesel would be even more efficient

Your forklift motor is probably not a 12 volt motor - More likely it's 48 volts or possibly even 72 volts. That would be your system voltage, so you'd need a battery pack, a charger and a solar array set up for 48 or 72 volts, not 12

Unless you want to recharge your big battery pack over several days while the boat is on a mooring, I think I would skip the solar panels. 400 watts of solar applied to a motor which is using 7500 watts is literally a drop in the bucket. Also consider that solar panels which are not set up so the sun hits them at a constant perpendicular angle only give a fraction of their rated output. 400 watts of panels flat on your roof will give you only about 60% of their rated output on a clear, cloudless day at best and even less in northern latitudes. If you could count on 10 hours of cloudless sun, you could possibly get as much as 2400 watts of power, but I think it actual use, 1500 watts per day would be more realistic . . . . you seldom see 10 hours of cloudless sun. 1500 watts of solar power would power your 7500 watt motor for about . . . . 12 extra minutes

The batteries you'd want to look at are L-16 deep cycle batteries - These are commonly used on . . . . forklifts. They are 400 AH each, weigh 120 pounds each and are 12 inches wide, 7 inches thick and 18 inches tall. A 48 volt forklift motor would need 8 of these and following the 30% 'rule' you could get a usable 280 Ah from them. 280 amps at 48 volts is a 13.5 Kw battery pack** - Almost enough to run your motor for 2 hours . . . . with the 5Kw genset running, you could probably go about 5 hours. You'd be 'losing' 2.5 Kw each hour which will be coming from the battery pack, so 5 times 2.5 is 12.5 Kw . . . . about what your battery pack is rated for. L-16 batteries would run you about $2750 for a set of 8

(** The 16 Kw lithium battery pack in my car weighs less than 500 pounds, VS your 1,000 pound 13.5 Kw set of 8 L-16's - Easy to see why lithiums are popular for cars . . . . but 16 Kw of lithiums currently costs around $6K)

I used four L-16 batteries on my sailboat for several years. Coupled to a pair of 100 watt solar panels, I could stay anchored for about a week without having to run the engine. The solar and the batteries powered my DC refrigeration system, all my lights, pumps, occasional TV and radio for about a week. Not having to regularly run the engine to recharge batteries saved me more than I paid for the system, when you add up the fuel, wear and tear on the engine, oil changes, other maintenance and such

Unless you'll be happy with a motor which can only run full speed ahead, you're going to need some kind of motor controller . . . . a 7.5 Kw motor controller. That's going to run you $2500 to $3K

If you want to do it, it's certainly possible . . . . it has been done many times - You'll have to decide it it's practical or not. Replacing $2750 worth of batteries every 4 or 5 years might cost you more than an equivalent amount of diesel fuel, not to mention the gas your genset will burn and the power you'll use when you plug in to recharge

Excuse please the often incoherent ramblings of another old man

Don

[Mark Deeser]

Don123, I very much appreciate your kind and extremely informative reply to one who is more dreamer, than a bearer of knowledge. I now understand that my idea which sounded good over my morning coffee, is best left with the caffine rush. Thank you for taking the time to give me a needed education. Mark

[gwaugh]

Interestingly enough, there is a A25 on Craigslist in Kansas City with an electric setup.

"1973 Albin 25, electric cruiser. 48v Electric Yacht motor with controller, throttle, and monitor. 300 amp/hour AGM battery bank with 25 amp on board charger."

[JT48348]

Mark: it's clever and it's within reason to consider other, out-of-the-box repowering options.
Just remember some people said the world was flat




Albin 25 repower with electric, midway down page
http://www.electricyacht.com/faqs/conve ... -on-video/

Albin 25 electric repower on Mad Mariner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fArbuxgbGVM

This guy already did it!
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/props/ ... 32293.html