Colinism

  The Airstream B190 is a somwhat uniquie Class B motorhome made between 1989 and 1999. The B 190 was made on a Ford Econoline E350 one ton van. The Fiberglass top section was made by Okanagan to start with, later ones being made by airstream themselves. Okanagan made baiscally the same vans as the B190 startng in the early 80's. The most interesting thing about these vans is they are a true Class B with van sides but feature a upper bunk above the drivers area. Few others have ever done this design. I like the design for operning up more space even if the bunk has limited headroom.  These bridge two generations of econoline vans so the early ones are more square before the aero style econoline updates were introduced in the early 90's. These also featured a number of Ford engine options over the years. The 351 V8 was standard The 460 big block V8 was an option and in some of the early years a pre powerstroke 7.3 diesel was available. Later in the aero years the V10 triton was...

Mid-size trucks, they were a thing in the 90’s thru about 2010 when the segment collapsed (lack of new product didn’t help). Well now they are a thing again. Over the past 5 years or so (starting with the release of GM’s current generation Canyon/Colorado twins) with Tacoma, Colorado/Canyon, Frontier, Gladiator and Ranger making large year over year gains in many of those years. One of the biggest reasons for the increase of sales in the segment is using the trucks as lifestyle vehicles (which has always been the compact / midsize trucks biggest draw) the increase in overlanding style off-roading, camping, boating, fishing, kayaking, biking, and many other outdoor activities has people looking for a vehicle that’s small enough to drive everyday while still being able to handle all their other duties on the weekend. Filling the bed or towing toys are some of the biggest truck uses. While we can get into towing another time, I think it would be a good idea to compare and contrast the ...

  Earlier in the week, Nissan announced a new Pathfinder coming for 2022 (sales starting this summer). While most of the press release went on to describe what you would expect in a new CUV launch, bigger touch screens, roomier, seats better electronic safety measures, something else caught my attention. According to the release it would be capable of towing 6,000 lbs, which is damn impressive for a FWD based 3-row crossover, I assume this is being helped by the new Transmission. This may be about the highest towing I have ever seen on a FWD chassis but I would need to do more research on it (all the other ones I can think of stop around 5k).    Now my favorite nugget, the press release also said it would be capable of hauling 4x8 sheets of plywood. If that’s with the door closed that would be damn impressive. Right now if you want to do that (with the door closed) your looking at a Suburban or a van (and maybe an Expedition). If it is true that would shrink the line...

 A little while back I wrote a short intro to the Albin 24 getaway. LINK HERE   Well now I found one for sale here in the North East. The ad states it has the 318 thou it has a knock. Otherwise looks to be in decent shape in the pictures.  Find the listing here on Craigslist

BCS 201 tiller I have a bit of an obsession with multi use items. Sometimes they aren’t very practical but I love a tool or anything else that can do a variety of jobs well. My Leatherman Wave being a good example. Would you use it to rebuild an engine? Nope. Is it incredibly useful to have on your hip doing projects around the house? Yep. Which leads me to todays topic, Two Wheeled tractors and in particular BCS. While browsing Craigs List today, I came across, a BCS rototiller. LINK I have known about BCS tractors for about a decade now and look for them from time to time but they are often well out of budget. This one was cheap so I dug a bit more and determined it was really mostly a rototiller version and not a true two wheel tractor (single rear PTO no reverse and limited controls). I’m pretty sure it’s 201 model but have emailed to confirm. So what is a 2 wheel tractor and how is it different then a regular rototiller? 2 Wheel tractors are pretty much what they sound like. They...

1990's Albin's why do I like you so much. There just something about the classic but up to date styling, with a good dose of practicality that's just hard to ignore.  The 24 is an oddball in some respects with a relatively few examples (48) made for a 24 footer. It's basically a scaled down version of the 31-34 foot command bridge models Albin built over the years. Having the raised helm area nets you more cabin in the larger boat.  Here it gets the engine under foot instead of in a box in the cockpit, as would normally be the case on a 24 foot boat with a straight shaft inboard.In actuality the straight shaft is one of the more unusual parts of this boat. While the arrangement was common in the pre stern drive era, it was very uncommon by the early 90's. The only other production cabin boat under 26' with an inboard of the time period I can think of is Shamrock (I'm sure there are others but I'm not going to spend all day finding them).  In the ...

Sometimes you just find a boat and you have to look into it more. I happened to be looking thru motor yacht listings one day and came across a Carver 325. The reason it  to me was the swim platform arrangement. Instead of a near vertical transom there was a series of steps in the platform allowing a non climb transition to the area above the aft cabin. Other then that change and some tweaks to the bridge this is the same basic 32' motor yacht Carver offered for a couple decades. But I like it might be my favorite small motor yacht. The arrangement below with a enormous v shaped dinette really makes it feel like a bigger boat and the berth arrangement in the back while a bit odd is versatile. Almost all of these are gas powered but diesel was an option. For a detailed write up the owner of boat-project.com used to own one and has mods and lots of info on his page http://www.boat-project.com/boats/carver.htm For some specs here is the factory info https://drive.google.com...

Interesting E-bay find. Donzi only made 40 of these back in the day. In collaboration with Mercruiser they had a twin prop surface piercing outdrive quite the toy. Unfortunately they became tough to fix later and many ended like this with a regular Bravo. These were around $55,000 new if I recall so trading around 12k seems a deal before the 2008 collapse I remember seeing them stil getting in the mid to high 20's. See it here on EBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/1995-Donzi-classic-22-Blackhawk-/123598153819?hash=item1cc706285b%3Ag%3AuK4AAOSwx0FbkEvD&nma=true&si=elhlIItzsrK8BcPXZaezzc%252FVwrs%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

If you go walking thru a boat show today you will see a number of new boats with outboards hidden behind covers. The  Searay 370   is one of the best known example of this. With Twin Mercury outboards hidden under fiberglass cowlings forward of the transom, it looks like a sleek express cruiser with a secret. Of course this idea isn’t new. People have been trying to hide outboards basically since outboards were invented.  You will notice a small addition to the Mercury in the Searay above, a fresh air vent to keep the engine well fed with clean air. I have seen this in a few homemade wooden boats and a handful of modified sailboats thou of course without the nicely molded OEM cowl. Why you might ask do people want to hide their shiny expensive outboard. Well for one lots of people don’t like the look of them hanging off the rear of the boat. They also tend to handle differently then inboard boats due to both their prop design and extreme aft...

I have been interested in RV's for a long time. Over the years I have noticed they tend to built incredibly cheaply with a few notable exceptions (air streams, certain fiberglass campers, bus conversions). The most common build is basically stick built with sheathing hung on wood framing. you also then have some with aluminum framing. You have also had a number made with fiberglass, much  like how a boat is constructed with a top and bottom section molded and then bolted/sealed together. One of my personal favorite types of RV is the truck camper. Having a removable living section and a truck to tow some other toy like a boat or ATV seems ideal. One issue these campers have is that weight is a major issue. Pickups have limited payload and truck campers often push the limits of these payloads. These would make them ideal candidates for lightweight composite construction with cored composites. While there are fiberglass camper builders out there making outstanding products they...

If your into cars (well trucks I guess) you likely know that GM offered 2500 versions of the Suburban and Yukon XL. Most of these heavy duty people haulers were bought by government fleets for everything from security to Fire and Police command cars. Whats a little less known is that the open backed Suburban better known as the Avalanche also had a 3/4 ton 2500 version during it’s first generation. Oddly, enough the first (and possibly only) one of these I have seen in person was actually the first Chevy Avalanche I ever saw in person. Back at the time of its release I was working at a marina, and we were having some grounds work done and the owner of the landscaping company showed up in a brand new Avalanche 2500, towing a Bobcat skid steer of all things. I remember  walking up to it thinking that’s an odd load for a new fangled truckUV to be towing. Then I saw the 8 lug wheels and made a mental note to crack open AOL and look it up at home that night. Even thou it’...

Came across this little guy in Marblehead MA last year. Looks like a conventional little fiberglass dinghy. A simple rope and pulley arrangement controls the rudder to a little wheel. The neat part is there appears to be a Optima AGM battery ahead of the thwart and cabling leading down to what I guess would be a trolling motor or similar electric pod drive. Would love to be able to find out more about it.

Lets try a new feature for today. Book review of Dave Gerr’s book, Nature of Boats. Well just to be clear before we get into it I love this book, I can grab it flip thru it and always find something worth re-reading. The book is really more a collection of past articles that N.A. Dave Gerr has written over the years for various publications (many seem to be from his excellent column from Offshore Magazine. Which sadly no longer exists. ) The book covers topics such as boat construction, design , stability and performance. It also features a number of drawings from Gerr’s own designs.  The book’s short articles allow for easy reading while providing a wealth of information, This helps avoid the book feeling over technical (boring) that some of the other books touching on basics of boat design can be. I personally love to read Gerr’s view of performance power and sail craft as well as his well though out al...

I drive by here once in a while and look at what’s left of a small working boat yard along the CT river in Cromwell CT. Based on the old sign it appears it was once called the Adams Henry boat yard. When I first came down here about 10 years ago the track for the marine railway extended across the road into the water. ( the track still appears to be there but the road was paved over a few years back. It appears the boats were winched up the track on a car with custom built cradles. The cradles were then shifted sideways onto the concrete walls in the yard.  Looks like you could fit a couple dozen 25-35’ boats in there. A neat place for sure. There is a house on the front of the property but I never see any one in the boatyard. I’ve asked around but so far no one seems to know any history on the place. So for now here’s a few pics showing the yard and the rails where the enter the water on the opposite side of the road.

While cruising the web for info on an older Hatteras yacht info I found out Hatteras built a 65′ sail boat (almost a motor sailor less pilothouse.) Reviewing a bit further on the web it looks like they don’t sail all that well, which looking at the underbody makes sense but man that thing has a ton of room down below. Check out the link Here .

1993 VW Golf the first car to truly test my AAA member ship. That’s not to say I never used the membership before (broke key off in a plymouth voyager had my girlfriends car towed due to a mysterious wiring problem) but the VW actually required AAA on 3 separate occasions for a tow. But first lets get into why I put up with this mess. I bought the car when it was about 15 years old and drove it for about 3 years. Once I got rid of an intermittent skip due due to a bad ground I was in love with the car. It flew around corners and it had that very special VW feel that only VW people seem to understand. Jeremy Clarkson would say it was German and did what a German car should. The 2.0 (2.slow) is an odd little 4 cylinder, it the other 4 cylinders I had driven before this car revving was the answer to your power problems, but in the 2.0 this has little effect running past 4,500 rpm seems to do little to increase your velocity. But this engine does have something that is usually lacking...

The Island Packet PY 41 is a unique semi displacement trawler based on the IP SP cruiser  . The 41' shares many traits with it's motor sailor cousin including a ballasted keel that should make for a very seaworthy 41'. My favorite features are the excellent fuel economy per this Power and motor yacht article and the kid friendly 2nd stateroom. I also kind of like the forward cockpit as at anchor and dock hang out spot. I;m not sure how many were made but they seem pretty rare on the brokerage market. I could easily picture this as a coastal cruiser for the family. Coming from a sailing family the odd for a powerboat layout seems pretty good to my eye. This would be awesome for week long adventures along the New England coast with short run times between interesting harbors. It would also make for a really nice Loop boat.

Inflatable boat Materials (The Hypalon PVC debate) In this article I will try to outline some of the strengths and weakness of the two materials most commonly used in inflatable boat construction as well as talk about several other materials on the market. Most of this is based on the time I spent working for one of the largest inflatable boat dealers in the US. Let’s start with the basics of both materials. Hypalon- Hypalon is a synthetic rubber made (or made under license) by the Dupont company. Hypalon has been around for more than half a century proving itself to be one of the most durable synthetic rubbers around. Hypalon is actually chlorosulfonated polyethylene meaning it’s a polyethylene with varying amounts of sulfur an chlorine added based on application. PVC - Is essential a hard plastic converted into a flexible material through additives. PVC is short for poly vinyl chloride. PVC was first discovered in the 1800 but the correct additives to make it into a useful mate...