We had an '86/'87 Albin 43 Sundeck trawler for many years before it was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. She was admittedly overpowered, having twin Cummins 6BT5.9M 210 HP engines. On several occasions, that power was appreciated very much. If I ever get another large boat it will have the same Cummins engines - not after-cooled, not computerized, just with turbos. (No experience with aftercoolers on Cummins engines, just that our engine mechanic said they could be troublesome.) That vintage of engines were not computer controlled. I did almost of the maintenance on the engines after my mechanic showed me how simple the Cummins engines were to work on for simple things like setting the valve lash clearance. I acquired the maintenance manuals for the engines and transmissions so I could properly service them. I liked the twin configuration for maneuvering purposes. We always tried to avoid bad weather, but were once caught in 8+' seas off Cape Romano, Florida, that, fortunately, were directly on the bow. The Albin 43's have a huge flared bow. Heading into the waves, the boat would start to ride up on the wave front, then cut into the wave. Water would go flying 20-30' out on each side of the boat with a loud swoosh. The windshield hardly got wet. We were not going very fast, and the boat handled the waves beautifully. Actually, I was surprised at how little the boat pitched in those conditions. I had often wondered about how well the boat could take large waves and was very pleasantly surprised. The engines' power came in handy, especially in large following seas. At that time, the boat had a Raymarine autopilot that struggled to handle following seas (recommended hydraulic pump was too small), but could, up to a point. I quickly appreciated having an autopilot steer the boat in good weather and keep it on course until I twisted the remote's knob for a slight, or major, course change. I have been in several other makes of boats of similar size. The Albin 43 was one of the best sea keeping boats I have been on of that size as it was heavily built. Florida is noted for its quickly developing thunder storms and I did not like sitting at the upper helm in bad weather so I installed all the needed equipment, duplicating the upper helm's, at the lower helm - originally the lower helm had only had the wheel, a compass and engine instruments. Later, a lightning strike directly on a VHF antenna wiped out all of the installed electronics and a new Garmin suite was installed - wow - fantastic - what an improvement! The original electronics were a hodge-podge of electronics that I installed as I could afford them. The Garmin suite was a totally integrated system.
… and then, Hurricane Michael came along and took the boat and three of its 5 50' pilings that were 25' in the sand bottom, down about a third of a mile and ploughed into some other pilings - sinking her. One the mooring pilings that were pulled out at our dock snapped back and went up inside the hull and had just a few feet sticking out the back. I don't know if it punctured the hull in the bow or not, but I think it did. The hole would have been below the waterline. The breast lines on one of remaining pilings were doubled 3/4" nylon and the other piling had tripled 3/4" lines on it. The doubled breast lines broke, but the tripled forward starboard bow lines just pulled the piling over to almost 45 degrees, then slipped off. For anyone who does not know - Hurricane Michael was supposed to arrive as a Cat 3 storm, but arrived as a Cat 5 storm. I hope to never see another one. The damage around here is still totally unimaginable, even though it has been many months since the storm.
