4/5/05.....RC Boat arrives in Burlington

A sunny afternoon prevailed as Dennis Fox pulled into the boat yard at Cloth'n Canvas with a treasured cargo. On the back of his transport trailer lay the Albin 27 Express cruiser which was purchased down in Annapolis Maryland....its new home....LCYC.....it's intended purpose...our new committee boat.

We looked at a couple of different boats this winter. The first was an older Luhrs 32 that Bill Aldrich had found on ebay.   A quick trip down by 2 members of the search committee found this boat to be in desperate need of work....lots of it. This one would stay where she was and wait for another potential owner to rescue her.  Next came a newer Luhrs which we located on Yachtworld.com. Lying in the Falmouth Maine area, she was close enough for a short Sunday trip over. Bob Goodwin and I made the trip in a record 4.25 hours...Bob likes to drive ! This one had more potential.  She was clean, well taken care of and the price was within our budget.  The only hesitation was the size.  It was felt that a 32 foot boat might be a bit intimidating for the newly formed RC to deal with.  So we passed on this one too.  The perfect boat was still out there...waiting for us.

Back to Yachtworld.com.  I refined the search for an Albin 27.  Bruce Hewitt had graciously allowed us to use his boat a couple of times last summer as RC boat and we found it to be a perfect size and layout for our needs.  The only catch was the aft cabin, a common feature found on this model.  There are many of this type out there but not to many Express Cruisers which have the open aft deck. This would be our perfect  boat !  We searched the available Albins. They were all over the price range and location.  One stuck out as potentially perfect. Asking 25K, powered with a 157 Izuzu engine (only 1425 hours) and......with the open aft deck. She was in Annapolis Maryland...ok...not too far away.  The only catch was the she had a "Sale pending" sign on her. 

I kept my eye on this listing for 2 weeks.  On a lark, I called the listing agent and inquired...
" what's the deal with the sale pending? If it falls through, could you give me a call?". He told me to sit tight and he'd get back to me.  A couple of hours later, I received a call that someone had made a mistake with the listing and she indeed was available.  We jumped into action.  Jeff  Hill contacted the listing agent, put the boat under deposit pending a successful survey, visual inspection by someone on our search committee and approval by the BOG's.

Initial offer of 23K was accepted.  Dave Kelton flew down the following weekend, did the survey and looked her over. "Dirty, needs some TLC, engine looks good, couple of fiberglass spots need attention, bottom in the process of being painted...overall, I'd buy it if it were me". We re-evaluated our offer and went down to 20K based on what Dave saw.  Offer was accepted! Bingo....the wheels continued to turn.  A survey write up was done, presented to the BOG along with a horde of pictures that were taken. Approval  to purchase followed, we closed on the deal on March 14th. Fox went down to pick her up and she now is lying at the shop in Colchester, awaiting a good cleaning, engine checkout by Cobil Diesel and re-commisioning as our new RC boat. 

There are many jobs to be done. Anyone interested in helping out should contact me at the shop at 658-6826 or send me an email at ernie@clothncanvas.com .  If you can't make workday, this would be a fun way to fulfill your workday obligation !

A couple of other pictures will have to satisfy your curiosity until you either come out to have a peek, or wait to see her appear in the water at the club in early May.

                                                                                                                       Click on the pics to enlarge

The newly formed Race Committee is  busy scheduling the summer ahead. Watch for the RC signup that will appear on the website shortly.  There will still be an obligation of each racer to sign up to be part of RC for one race every 2 years. The difference this year will be that there will be a PRO for each race that will make most of the calls regarding running of the race. Also, and more importantly, the new boat will provide a consistency of race management that will take us forward from here.  Thanks to all that have made this possible and for the support that this project has received from membership.

Let's go racing !!!

Ernie Reuter