Alternative Propulsion Thread

[fastcat435]

Hallo Steve yes I missed that one sorry. 4 FastCats of the 435/ 445 model have been launched and are sailing 7 are being build in different phases of construction
6 of the 445 model and one of the 605 model. besides one 445 all are Green Motion models
2 in glass/carbon/kevlar 1 in carbon/kevlar and 3 in Basalt/kevlar. the 605 is all carbon with kevlar for impact reinforcement.
Gideon

[KGP]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

Another blog by Andreas Julseth the owner of african innovation
Sailing around the World.

It has been shown elsewhere that as of 4 August 2009, and has yet to be discredited, that African Innovation is registered to Rainbow Nation Yacht Builders, with the responsible person being Mr G Goudsmit.

Given that most owners do not have a clear title because of a lien, Andreas could certainly be in the category of "owner" of this particular boat. However, when the "bank" might happen to be the boat's builder, it does present an interesting situation in terms of information. And frankly, assuming you are in fact still the registered owner, why not simply disclose it?

[fastcat435]

African Innovation was deregistered from South Africa when she was imported in to the Netherlands on July 1 2005 upon arrival in the Netherlands The south Africa registration was only a temporary one She was sold to her present owner last Early last Year.
There is no lien on the boat and she is paid in full last year.
I do not know what this has to do with the alternative propulsion thread but maybe you do?

[Nordic cat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

Another blog of a Fastcat is Nieuwe pagina 1

this Fastcat 435 is the first one we launched with electric motors made by Solomon Tech.

Greetings

Gideon

Have a look at the late 2008 posts from october and onwards. Major delaminations, forward crossbeam coming off, large amount of fairing compund incorrectly bonded to the hulls. All this on a boat that is supposed to be fully infused with epoxy in moulds. Using the much vaunted Vektor-K process being pushed by this vendor.

Sure the customer is grateful for any small help, but should this be happening on a 2-3 year old boat?

People interested in these boats should thoroughly research the web for information, some very interesting facts might turn up.

Alan

[fastcat435]

There was no delamination and the crossbeam did not come loose or off or anything like that at all Alan and you know it , contact the owner thru his blog and you will find out you are again trying to discredit African Cats as usual I should ad
Facts please no nonsense !!

[Nordic cat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

African Innovation was deregistered from South Africa when she was imported in to the Netherlands on July 1 2005 upon arrival in the Netherlands The south Africa registration was only a temporary one She was sold to her present owner last Early last Year.
There is no lien on the boat and she is paid in full last year.
I do not know what this has to do with the alternative propulsion thread but maybe you do?

Can you then explain why photos of African Innovation taken this year in the Caribbean show her flying the South African flag, and not a European flag, as you claim the boat was imported into Europe?

I know this is not relevant to the thread, but you made the seemingly incorrect statement, so please correct it. Facts are facts, all incorrect information is not OK on a well run forum, in fact it goes against CF forum rules.

Alan

[Nordic cat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

There was no delamination and the crossbeam did not come loose or off or anything like that at all Alan and you know it , contact the owner thru his blog and you will find out you are again trying to discredit African Cats as usual I should ad
Facts please no nonsense !!

Yes facts please,

I believe the pictures from the African Seawing blog. The comments and pictures are to be found on the nov/dec 08 page, just scroll down.

There are more "nice" pictures showing some minor and insignificant quality issues on this Fastcat as well.

[fastcat435]

No I cannot explain that but maybe you should ask the owner since we no longer own the boat since well over a year. He was going to register the boat in the Grand Cayman islands but maybe changed his plans, people do that every now and than.
I think it is all up to him where to register it or not ?
What do you think ?

[fastcat435]

The cross beam is and was in perfect shape and so was the connection, the sika around the block shows cracks but it is only cosmetic. The coppercoat came loose because a well know UK epoxy supplier supplied us with faulty filler, we paid for the cleaning of the hull and the reapplication of the coppercoat all to the satisfaction of the owner.
We still sort out issues that are not related to the construction of the boat but to suppliers of parts of the boat like Fischer Panda , Tack Tick and others and all solved to satisfaction
Warranty is over since over 1 year but we still care and take action.
I own a St Francis 48 , a well build boat but also had many smaller and larger quality issues , it seems to go with the yachting industry. all the problems where solved in a satisfactory manner.

[KGP]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

African Innovation was deregistered from South Africa when she was imported in to the Netherlands on July 1 2005 upon arrival in the Netherlands The south Africa registration was only a temporary one She was sold to her present owner last Early last Year.
There is no lien on the boat and she is paid in full last year.
I do not know what this has to do with the alternative propulsion thread but maybe you do?

About the same relevance as post 113 by you. If Andreas owns the boat 100%, that's awesome to hear! BTW, I never said it wasn't de-registered in 05.

Originally Posted by fastcat435

There was no delamination and the crossbeam did not come loose or off or anything like that at all

This page of his blog specifically mentions delamination.

But perhaps the most interesting thing written in that blog is: "So you need to be good friends whit Gideon or the leniency mite stop. Got the picture?"

[fastcat435]

The tone of the music is always important if something is asked in a pleasant way we are more inclined to help then if somebody does that in a tune not befitting or even in a criminal way , is that not the normal way in the world ?
Some people are more pleasant than others and the nicer people get more done than others.
( with us anyway )
This has nothing to do with warranty but with accommodating somebody in something that is not a warranty issue.

[Nordic cat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

The cross beam is and was in perfect shape and so was the connection, the sika around the block shows cracks but it is only cosmetic.

Foregive me if i misunderstood your post, but are you saying that the crossbeam, that is attached to a spacer block (why have a spacer block to in the first place unless someone ordered the crossbeam incorrectly) is floating on a layer of sikaflex? The gap looks like between 5 and 10 mms wide!

Anyone reading Franks blog will understand that this was a much bigger issue than a cosmetic crack. Anyone who knows an iota about multihulls or boats who sees the pictures will know that this is a highly loaded point on the boat, and that is not only cosmetic.

Alan

[fastcat435]

The spacer block is designed in by Angelo Lavranos and it is not floating on a layer of Sikaflex , sika was only put around the edges for cosmetic reasons and crossbeams on cats move a bit as you probably know with your engineering background the sika cracked and nothing else. It was not a bigger issue than a cosmetic crack. The gap was about 2 mm wide and only because the boat was on shore before it was even less.
The spacer block makes the crossbeam connection at a straight angle and therefore a better fixation to the boat.
When these pictures where taken the boat had already made a journey on its own keel of well over 7000 miles showing that the crossbeam connection was fine, as you state it is a high stressed area and very highly loaded and it kept fine during this crossing, you know how much force is on the beam with the mast stays tensioned and sails flying .

[Nordic cat]

well, to cut through the smoke screen on the crossbeam issue, just let's see what the owner has to say:

And now I'm there in the front peek, time to check the attachments of the cross beam. You know, that's the aluminium beam that connects the front peeks of the hulls. As you know, on the outside the blocks where the beam is attached where showing on the underside a gap of 6mm. After removing centimeters thick filler who was no longer attached to the hull we discover delaminating on the port hull. 30cm by 15cm a hardly filled glass layer is loos from the foam. Also a second glass layer was not attached any more on the first on. Then also we could see the RVS plate was 6mm deep into the foam. There goes the reassuring words of Gideon that all is OK with our crossbeam. There's nowhere some extra glass or carbon to be found there to enforce that spot as we where told it should be. In fact, it's a very poor infusion at that critical point. There's much more flesh to be found in the other hull. Two different persons maybe? Anyhow, I'm going to put some extra layers of glass for sure and try to fix the delaminating

For novices knowledge, the cross beam carries the anchor, the mast via the genoa, the genoa at sail, the asymmetric spinnaker at sail and the trampoline. Enough raisons to be sure this cross beam stay at place avoiding some serious drama.

No extra glass or carbon to be found as told????? Yet another broken promise for the long suffering owners of a Fastcat.

Your proclamations of "No Problem" have not made the problem dissappear. You claim a 2 mm gap, the owner says 6 mm. There should be NO GAP, sure a boat and crossbeam flex, but should not move.

The other side was OK, that goes to show that the quality of the build on these boats is half good or should that be half *****?

Alan

[Nordic cat]

Here is a bit more on the crossbeams:

So time for inside work. Back to the bow where I will beef up the cross beam with 2 layers of strong woven glass. Just to paper my conscience. Because if we can believe AFC all is well and strong enough. There should be 8 layers on the outside skin. Ha, that's new, before all was on the inside too but now the glass has moved to the outside. Hard to prove hey? Still, for my peace of mind, 2 layers more on the inside where only one delaminated glass was to be found. She can only come out stronger and a bit heavier.


Obviously someone from the boatbuilder attempted to bluff his way out of the problem by claiming all the glass needed to be on the outside of the foam composite. Luckily Frank the owner didn't go for that explanation either....

Alan