Practical Sailor Back Issues With Review on Alberg 37 Sailboat

Photos courtesy of Tom Curren

The Alberg 35 dates dorsum to the dawn of big-time fiberglass sailboat edifice. Its production began in 1961, just a yr after Hinckley stopped edifice product wooden sailboats. 2 years before, in 1959, Pearson built the first Triton, the boat that was the prototype of the inexpensive, small family, fiberglass cruising sailboat. The Tritons big selling betoken was a low-maintenance hull that Mom and Pop and the kids didnt have to spend all spring in the boatyard, getting information technology prepare for the summertime.

These days-when getting the family sailboat ready in the bound may mean trivial more than washing and waxing the topsides, plus a quick coat of paint on the bottom-its difficult to remember that owning a boat some xxx years ago usually meant work, and a lot of it, or coin, and a lot of that, too.

In 1961, Pearson added the 34-foot, 9-inch Alberg 35 to its expanding sailboat line. The Alberg 35 was a fixture in the Pearson line until 1967. In 1968, the boat was replaced by the Shaw-designed Pearson 35, a slightly larger, more modern boat in keeping with the changing demands of the market. During vi years of product, more than 250 Alberg 35s were built.

Its very tempting to telephone call every good-looking, successful gunkhole from the 1960s a classic. And the Alberg 35 is no exception. It is practiced-looking and was successful, then we think it deserves to be called a classic. The boat has a handsome sheer, flattish for her 24-hour interval but erstwhile-fashioned and springy compared to current boats. She has a depression, rounded cabin trunk with slightly raised doghouse, and just about perfectly balanced long overhangs both forward and aft.

Compared to more modern 35-footers, the Alberg 35 is narrow, curt on the waterline, and cramped. Todays typical 35-foot cruiser-racer is at to the lowest degree four anxiety longer at the waterline and more than than a foot wider.

Sailing Performance

The term cruiser-racer was just entering the jargon in 1961. The Pearson sales brochure from 1967 calls the Alberg 35 a proven bounding main racer, cruiser. Annotation the term ocean. The Alberg 35 was the smallest boat in the Pearson line to which that give-and-take was attached, unlike many builders who push anything with lifelines and a self-bailing cockpit as a bluewater cruiser.

While the Alberg 35 had moderate success as a racer, the gunkhole was-and even so is-a cruising boat. By current standards, the Alberg 35 is a tedious boat for her length overall, with a typical U.S. Performance Handicap Racing Armada (PHRF) rating of 198. Past fashion of comparing, her replacement, the Pearson 35, rates nearly 174, and the Ericson 35-2 about 150.

But Alberg 35s accept to sea pretty well. The narrow, deep hull form makes for a very expert range of positive stability-about 135 degrees-and an easy motion in a seaway. Owners consider the boats speed on par with other boats of similar size and type.

Dissimilar mod boats with wide axle and firm bilges, the narrow Alberg 35 heels very quickly, despite a 42-percent ballast-to-displacement ratio. But narrow boats sail fairly efficiently at fairly steep heeling angles. A mod boat such as the J/35 sails best upwind in 15 knots of truthful breeze at a 23-degree angle of heel, while a boat like the Alberg 35 is happy at close to a 30-degree angle in the same weather condition. (Bottom line: The cook will insist that you cleft off while supper is on the stove.)

With a rudder set up well forward, it can take a lot of helm to keep the gunkhole on class when reaching in a breeze. The relatively large, low-aspect ratio mainsail doesn't assist. At the same fourth dimension, owners study that the boat tracks well, a quality missing in many newer boats.

The Alberg 35 was built both as a sloop and a yawl. Yawls were pop nether the Cruising Club of America (CCA) Rule considering mizzen and mizzen staysail area was lightly taxed. The yawl is not a bad rig for brusk-handed cruising, since the mizzen can exist used to assistance rest the boat, and it is specially useful in anchoring and weighing ballast nether sail. From a performance and handling point of view, however, the yawl rig has few if any advantages on a gunkhole this size. We would expect for the sloop rig if we were shopping for an Alberg 35.

The mast is stepped on deck, over the doorway to the frontwards cabin. This requires substantial reinforcement of the bulkhead. Several owners in our survey reported that the coring in the deck under the mast has crushed, allowing the top of the cabin to shrink. The trouble can be fixed past replacing the cadre with solid laminate, and re-locating the compression post more directly nether the mast. Other owners have also laminated in cross beams beneath the deck to reinforce this surface area.

Both the sloop and yawl rigs have simple, adequately heavy aluminum masts. A varnished spruce roller-reefing principal boom was standard. Wed forget the roller reefing and set up the boat up for slab reefing. In our feel, a roller-reefed mainsail is usually and so baggy that its useless for upwind sailing.

Several owners in our survey have added bowsprits to their A35s, converting them to cutter rigs with a yankee and staysail. This improves the boats balance, every bit well every bit making sail combinations more than flexible for cruising.

The cockpit is long and quite large, with plenty of room for daysailing hordes. Cockpit coamings are teak, and really look overnice when varnished. The standard tiller takes upward a lot of cockpit space, merely most boats weve looked at take the optional pedestal bicycle steering.

Big port and starboard cockpit lockers have poor locking arrangements, and drain straight to the bilge. Give a lot of thought to what will happen if the gunkhole is pooped past a following sea, then go to piece of work at improving hatch sealing and fastening.

Sail-handling equipment on these boats is likely to be primitive. The one-time Merriman No. 5 genoa winches and No. two mainsheet and jib halyard winches appointment from the time when trimming and setting sails was expected to be a lot of piece of work. Wed replace them all with modern, powerful, cocky-tailing winches if anything other than daysailing is contemplated.

Besides, there was originally no mainsheet traveler. On a narrow boat like this, with the mainsheet led aft, there actually isn't that much reward to a traveler; information technology simply operates over too small a range of the booms arc to offer much benefit. If the mainsheet were re-led so that y'all could put a traveler on the bridgedeck, just in forepart of the steering pedestal, a traveler would be worthwhile. This, of course, would mean getting rid of the roller-reefing principal, but in our opinion, thats a good thought anyway.

Bicycle steering was an option, but youll discover it on a lot of Alberg 35s-a plus, in our stance.

Construction Details

Today, many A35s are used for offshore cruising. Plain, rugged structure is one reason why. The hull is a heavy, uncored layup, not particularly potent or strong for its weight, just easy to repair and relatively foolproof.

Rudder structure is a holdover from the days of wooden boats. It consists of a wooden rudder blade bolted to a heavy bronze rod, formed to the shape of the aft border of the prop aperture. The rudder of any Alberg 35 should be examined advisedly, non because this type of construction is poor, but merely because the rudders are getting old. The rudders may accept been damaged in groundings, or the stock bolts may be corroded.

Ane advantage of rudder construction is that information technology is very easy to alter the rudder blueprint. Nosotros suggest getting rid of the original barn-door rudder blade and replacing it with a more than modern pattern with a straight trailing edge and more area near the bottom of the rudder.

This Constellation-type profile became pretty much standard with the final long-keel CCA boats designed before the Intrepid-blazon skeg and rudder of the tardily 1960s. The lesser of the new rudder could be angled up slightly to reduce the chance of damage in groundings.

Two aspects of the boats construction have caused some problems for owners. First, the ballast casting is a unmarried clamper of lead which is dropped into the hollow fiberglass keel molding.

Along the bottom of the keel, some boats have a void between the pb casting and the fiberglass crush, making the shell vulnerable to damage in groundings or fifty-fifty when hauling and launching the gunkhole. A surveyor should carefully evaluate this area for voids by sounding with a mallet. Voids tin can be adequately hands filled by injecting epoxy resin into the cavity.

The other problem could be more difficult to solve. The decks on early on fiberglass boats like the A35 were often built using border-grain rather than endgrain balsa wood. Edge-grain lacks the stiffness or compression forcefulness of a modern cease-grain balsa sandwich. Flexing of decks cored this way tin break the bond betwixt the fiberglass skins and balsa core. If the deck feels mushy, information technology likely is at least partially delaminated.

Repair-assuming the core is dry-involves drilling an extensive network of holes through the deck skin and cadre, being careful to reach but not penetrate the inner skin. Epoxy resin is then injected in each hole until information technology runs out of adjacent holes. The deck should exist braced upwardly from below and weighted down from higher up until the resin cures.

This method works well with modest areas of delamination, merely is a tedious job in larger areas. At all-time, y'all stop upwardly with a deck sandwich that is somewhat stronger than the original that failed. Major refinishing of the deck will and so be required. Extensive deck softness is cause for rejecting any gunkhole, regardless of age.

You will detect a variety of tankage arrangements in boats of different vintages. According to one owner, early on boats have galvanized fuel and water tanks, which will eventually rust through. Another owner had a huge built-in fiberglass fuel tank forrad, which developed a leak and was replaced by a monel tank in the same location. Design specifications for late boats in the production run call for an integral, 48-gallon, fiberglass water tank located in the bilge under the master cabin sole, plus a 23-gallon monel fuel tank under the cockpit sole.

The advantage of the monel fuel tank is that it will not have to exist replaced if a diesel fuel engine is installed: Only affluent information technology thoroughly with diesel fuel to remove any traces of gasoline, and youre in business. Monel is absolutely the all-time cloth for either fuel or water tanks, but information technology is prohibitively expensive for nigh.

Like most sailboats of this vintage, you may observe extensive gelcoat crazing and fading on both the hull and deck. This is a cosmetic problem upwardly to the point where crazing allows water to migrate into the laminate, at which time information technology can become a structural problem. If the gelcoat has begun to buckle and peel, its best to avoid the boat unless youre looking for a boat at a rock-lesser price for offshore sailing. Cosmetic repair of superficial crazing is labor-intensive, involving sanding, multiple coats of loftier-build epoxy primer, and complete refinishing, preferably with polyurethane. To take this washed professionally would be quite expensive.

The deck gear, standing rigging, and spars on these boats are getting old. Many of the boats take high mileage, since a large percentage are used for long-altitude offshore cruising. Be prepared to do relatively unproblematic jobs like removing and rebedding stanchions and deck fittings, installing backing plates, and replacing a lot of rigging. Sails more than 5 years old-other than storm sails that have seen little or no use-are candidates for replacement.

Engine

All Alberg 35s were powered by the ubiquitous Diminutive Four gasoline engine. If youre thinking most keeping an A35 for five or more years, recollect most replacing the engine-preferably with a diesel fuel.

Of course, a lot of owners take already retrofitted their boats with diesels, just the installations volition obviously vary dramatically in quality.

The pluses and minuses of replacing an sometime Atomic Four with a diesel fuel are still debated at length online, although the tenor is more than subdued these days. Certainly, a gunkhole with a shine running Atomic Four will serve its owner well, but in our view, the scales are pretty heavily tilted toward a diesel conversion. Finding a boat with a defunct Atomic Four and putting a diesel in it is a sure mode to increment the value, although as with virtually boats of this age-even classics like the Alberg 35-yous cannot look that you will ever become out of the gunkhole what you invest in information technology financially, should you lot determine to sell. The big benefits for switching to diesel are safe and the fact that the cruising range under power roughly doubles-a big plus in lite-wind areas.

Westerbeke, which bought the Atomic 4 line from the original manufacturer, makes three- and four-cylinder replacements. Betamarine advertises itself every bit the just manufacturer dedicated to supplying diesel engine replacements for the Atomic Iv. Whichever replacement you choose, don't assume a drib-in replacement. You will have to double-cheque all your measurements. In many cases, an upgrade to diesel from an Atomic Four ways youll demand to get a new prop every bit well.

Like almost boats with the rudder mounted well forward and the prop fitted in an aperture, the Alberg 35 backs down poorly. This is simply a fact of life, and then you have to become used to information technology. Steering alee, the gunkhole handles fine. The Atomic Iv provides perfectly adequate power for the A35, giving a cruising speed of well-nigh 6 knots in at-home h2o.

Interior

Because the Alberg 35 is narrow, it will seem cramped to those accustomed to the condo-like interiors of modern 35-footers. The arrangement, though, is pretty good.

Two interiors were congenital: One is the traditional interior of practically every boat built in the last 50 years, the other is a dinette arrangement, which became popular when people started looking for more workable galleys about 30 years ago. Both boats have large frontward cabins with V-berths, a hanging locker, a bureau, and drawers under the berths. This is one reason the boat appeals to a lot of minimum-budget liveaboards. The forward cabin can be a real owners stateroom, even though it lacks a double berth. If you were handy, you could rip out the V-berths and build a expert-sized diagonal double forth either side of the cabin, building in additional storage opposite. The motel is big enough that this wouldnt totally destroy standing space.

In that location are two statuary-framed opening ports and a hatch for ventilation in the forward motel.

The caput is aft of the forward cabin, and runs the full width of the boat-a good arrangement on a boat this narrow. With the doors to the main cabin and forwards cabin close, this creates a head compartment with a lot of elbow room. For daysailing, y'all only need to shut the door to the main cabin to get privacy-no worse than shutting the caput door on any boat.

Ventilation is provided in the head via two opening ports plus a pair of cowl vents in Dorade boxes.

The Alberg 35 was one of the first boats of this size to be congenital with standard hot and cold, pressurized water, plus a shower. It was a big selling indicate dorsum and so; now information technology is taken for granted on a 35-foot gunkhole.

The main cabin volition accept either the conventional organisation of settee berths on each side with a fold-down table between, or the galley forth one side with a U-shaped dinette contrary.

The dinette organization is a decidedly mixed blessing. By lowering the dining table, the dinette converts to a double berth. The original stove well in the dinette arrangement was big enough for a three-burner gimballed stove with oven, while the conventional aft galley has the rinky-dink two-burner alcohol stove that was standard equipment on most boats for many years.

With the dinette, in that location are ii quarterberths aft that extend under the cockpit, and they are reasonable sea berths. In the conventional arrangement, you would use the main cabin settees as sea berths, which is also fine.

Quarterberths can be stuffy in tropical climates, and they tend to end up every bit inefficient take hold of-all spaces for anything that is also big or awkward to stow in lockers or drawers.

Simply the aft galley is no prize. The galley counters are quite low due to the boats depression freeboard. At that place is a pocket-size single sink, plus the aforementioned instrument of torture in identify of a stove, and an icebox whose acme must perform double duty as galley work infinite and a rudimentary chart table. With the dinette arrangement, the dining tabular array volition probably double as the nav station, although wed be tempted to sacrifice one of the quarterberths to build in storage infinite plus a usable, stand-up nav station.

Its no wonder that at to the lowest degree 1 owner reports tearing out the entire aft galley and starting from scratch.

Ventilation in the main motel is non-existent, except for the master companionway hatch. Because of the step in the motel profile, fitting a ventilation hatch over this motel is tricky, merely it can be washed.

Interior decor is very menstruum, and the early on 1960s were mayhap the nadir of interior pattern in sailboats. Low maintenance fever was at its peak, and woods-grain plastic laminate ran rampant.

Fortunately, this is nothing that a little painting can't cure, or if youre really handy, you lot can laminate nice, make clean, solid-colour Formica over the sometime stuff on the counters and bulkheads, and so varnish the wood trim. The comeback in interior appearance and credible space would be amazing.

Conclusions

Weve presented a pretty intimidating list of drawbacks to the Alberg 35. Now lets wait at the positive side. This is a sturdy, ruggedly congenital boat whose pattern and construction are suited for serious offshore sailing, with the caveat that yous become through the gunkhole from i terminate to the other, replacing every piece of gear thats tired, and reinforcing and repairing as necessary.

There are not as well many boats that you can buy for this kind of money and so head off to Tahiti in reasonable security.

Congenital without the full-length molded fiberglass pans and liners that interfere with even modest modification, the Alberg 35 is stick built-a tinkerers dream. You may not exist ready to build a boat from scratch, but you can exercise modifications on the Alberg 35 to your hearts content without going bankrupt or destroying your investment.

The boat is really skillful-looking, particularly compared to a lot of modern, high-sided tubs. If youre a fanatic, you can make clean up, paint, and refinish the boat to look almost as expert as a Hinckley Pilot-almost.

Some Alberg 35s have been meticulously maintained, and are in beautiful status. Others accept been crush to pieces by owners going cruising on the inexpensive. Wed look for a nice one, or 1 that had just corrective problems. The trick is figuring out which bug are just corrective.

A liveaboard couple tin can be comfortable on this boat, having much more elbow room than on a smaller modern alive aboard cruiser for which youd pay more than money.

You desire a decent-sized gunkhole for serious cruising, while spending about the aforementioned coin as you would for a newer 27-footer? Consider the Alberg 35. Buy it, and exist off for warmer places.

Pros & Cons: Alberg 35

Alberg 35 Interior

Alberg 35

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Source: https://www.practical-sailor.com/sailboat-reviews/used_sailboats/alberg-35-offers-classic-escape

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