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• Alden
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Defining
moments. For those of us in boating, they were probably the first time
we felt a need to be part of all things nautical that was as strong as
the ebb and flow of the tides. Mine was the day my grandfather took me
on a ferryboat ride that lasted barely 10 minutes from dock to dock. But
to my five-year-old senses, that voyage was a grand adventure filled with
limitless possibilities, a voyage that continues to this day.
Martin
Ain, a savvy, veteran boater, says he experienced his defining nautical
moment as he watched Ingrid, a stunning Alden 60 named after his wife,
being launched at the builder’s Portsmouth, Rhode Island, facility.
Ain’s experience was the culmination of a year-and-a-half-long process
of building a semi-custom boat, and from the moment I stepped aboard,
I could tell it was worth the effort. From her proud Downeast profile
to her tumblehome transom to her meticulously fitted joinerwork, the Alden
60 is a nautical work of art that blends and balances the best of modern
technology with the kind lines that never go out of style.
The
60, like all Aldens, was constructed in accordance with the American Boat
& Yacht Council’s guidelines for construction of small craft
as well as the American Bureau of Shipping’s guidelines for building
and classing motoryachts. Her Baltek balsa-cored hull, with unidirectional
and biaxial E-glass, has isophthalic neopentyl glycol gelcoat as a barrier
to osmotic blistering. The Baltek has a Lloyd’s Register of Shipping
certificate enabling Alden to offer a 10-year unlimited warranty against
osmotic blistering. Other notable construction features include four full-length
Divinycell stringers encapsulated in FRP, S-glass at the waterline and
bow for impact resistance, Corecell in the superstructure, and sole-bearing
timbers of solid mahogany encapsulated in polyester resin. On top of all
that, vacuum-bagging is used throughout for maximum resin saturation and
minimum weight.
Such
attention to strong, lightweight materials has another benefit. As I found
out during my sea trial, Ingrid performed well for a big, fully equipped
boat that Ain has loaded with many options: a 16-kW Northern Lights genset,
a reconfigured saloon/dining area that can seat eight (the standard layout
seats six), and a Davis home theater setup being just three. She was easy
to handle around the dock, thanks to Caterpillar’s slow-engine mode
that drops idle rpm of her 660-hp 3196TA diesels by 200 turns. And even
with a pesky breeze inside the marina on test day that could have played
havoc with the bow, a touch of the Sidepower 10-hp thruster had us neat
and trim whether leaving the dock or backing down into the slip.
While
the calm conditions underway gave me no indication of her sea-keeping
abilities, Ain reported that on his way from Rhode Island to Sag Harbor,
New York, he faced a three-hour bout with white-capped four-footers that
forced him to throttle back to 1700 rpm. At that rpm, he says, he still
managed just under 24 mph. “And I only had to hit the wiper button
three times,” he adds.
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Alden 60 continued > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
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