yachtrodney - Launched at Last (after 15 years)

[yachtrodney]

As you can tell we love photos. So wonder why there are lots of you on the forum who don't have a picture in your profile - of yourself or your boat.

I straightway looked at the profiles of everyone who posted - only to find very few have a picture.
If you have any links or photos we can look at - please let me know.

Also - if you've got Google Earth - I'd love to have a look at where exactly you are right now.
Here are two Google KML files - showing - where we were - and where we are at present.

Rodney

[44'cruisingcat]

I have some photo's here of my own build.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/gallery...00&userid=3477

Hope to be floating early next year.

[yachtrodney]

What you suggest about - 'break a few feet at a time' - of the ferrocement hull - and weld - then repair the mesh - and re cement the section - was not ever a serious consideration for me.

There is no doubt - that it could be done - and I suppose if you're going to spend 10 years building the hull - and a few more cutting it in half - then the work of patchwork quilt - repairing an area of say 2' wide - right around the yacht is not impossible. To be honest there is just NO simple way you can go about what I had to do.

But to be honest - I have never liked chiselling, chipping - and smashing the 1'' thick hull and it's 8 layers of mesh and five-eight steel rods - even on small areas. Once you take to the hull with a hammer and chisel - and literally start pulverizing the concrete and mesh - it seems to me it's hard to know just what the repurcussions are for all the adjoining areas. And when do you stop with it still being a solid piece of hull. And the mesh must be staggered and overlapped - in the areas from old to new. And you must use special 'hydro-friendly' epoxies that will join wet to dry. And each of the areas - and then the whole waist area of the yacht needs to be faired.

Also - the yacht is 23 metres long - and by the time you add up all the walls and frames - you are talking about painstakingly smashing out - and remeshing and cementing - 90 to 100 metres by maybe up to 1 to 2 feet wide.

Perhaps - it was the fact - that I could not bring myself to face that much remeshing and cementing - having spent years on it before - but to be honest - it did not seem a realistic option - and I don't think anyone in my position - with the years of boatbuilding behind them - would have chosen to go down that road.

It was a nightmare - whichever way you look at it - but you need to weigh up the amount of time and work involved - and more importantly - there is only one real consideration - and that is - will you alone be able to realistically do this for another few years - and will it result in the yacht being launched as strongly as possible - IN THIS LIFETIME.

I am fairly condfident that the quarter inch steel plates - either side - of everything - and the thousands of bolts - should keep the top - permanently - ON THE TOP - no matter what.

Rodney

[yachtrodney]

What an impressive project - you've got - it all looks very well organized and set up too.

That's a great tent/barn covering you've got over it all.

What is the core construction material? - it looks like some kind of end grain laminate - that your cutting the patterns from and fibreglassing into place.

But whatever - it's going to be a great cruising cat - and a lot of living space - for when you do get it on the water.

I've always liked cruising catamarans - and envied the wide open living platform - and large lounge areas it allows - such a pleasant tropical lifestyle. Not to mention the fast ocean passages as well.

And as much as we might say we like passages - and being at sea - it's the sitting in a beautiful anchorage enjoying the scenery and surroundings we really enjoy. And that looks like the perfect boat for both.

I always remember and have lived by - what an old cruising yachtie told me years ago - if you're actually at sea for more than 1 month in the year - you're doing too much sailing - and not enough cruising.

It certainly looks like you're doing a careful and quality job on it too.

Whereabouts are you located?

regards

Rodney

PS Perhaps someone can tell me - should I continue to reply to people here like this - or should I go to the persons page or thread to answer them - what's the correct procedure?

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah keep replying. Do have a good look around. There are certainly some very good experts around here. I look forward to seeing you join in on discussions.

So how did the boat eventually "float". Did she stay to her estimated lines" or is she higher or lower than you anticipated?
What is the engine?
How long do you expect before you finaly get rigging and get to sail her?

[yachtrodney]

The yacht has a Gardner 6LX main engine - and 25hp 10kva Chinese Diesel Generator - although we will run the little portables mostly for the computer, lights and charger.

But we will need to run the big generator for the Hot water - mains and engine heat exchanger.

When it was launched the yacht surprisingly sat dead level - and on the painted waterline - which I had put 6'' higher anyway. But since then - I've put a couple of tons of water in the forward tanks only (all up the yacht can hold 10-12000 litres of water and 4000 litres of diesel (but I doubt we'll ever be able to afford to fill it up) - and loaded another 500kg of anchor chain in the bow - and we are sitting a few inches down at the front. I'm hoping that if I retrim the water tanks and transfer some weight back we should be looking pretty good.

I don't know if your comment was prompted from seeing one of the photos of the yacht - sitting bow high - at low tide - and resting full belly on the bottom here at the dock - which could be a bit deceiving.

At high tide we're floating fine.

Rigging: I have a complete set of cruising sails in bags on the foredeck/cabin roof - that I purchased a few years ago - to suit the 94' mast and rig in the design - but we don't have a mast and rig to put them on - and I don't know when we might be able to afford one.

Knowing this would be the case long ago - I had the naval architect Len Hedges (now deceased) draw me plans for a 'radio tower' home made mast. This could be built by me in the space of a month or so - given access to a work area - for a few thousand dollars - so we'll just wait and see for now what develops - we've got quite enough to keep us busy here for a while.

Rodney

[yachtrodney]

Here is a photo taken from the back deck of the view behind at low tide.

Botany Bay - Panorama behind yacht

It was taken about 1 hour ago

Rodney

[cooper]

Way to go Rodney...I just discovered my dog was flirting with yours. I tried to explain the gogsmacking photos to him , but he was far more interested in Penny ..particulaly after the "likes paddocks more than" comment. I am living on my project in a paddock too. When we visit my little boat ( a 30 foot ferro on the Gipps lakes) he spends his whole time upside down in the cockpit ignoring me. I love the BIG project.....there are so many people who bag what i am doing and its a fraction of what you have achieved. Recently a 75 footer in steel was floated in the gipps lakes, a life project beautifully built. As the story goes to get her to sit at her lines he had a fleet of concrete mixers lined up at the jetty. Hope to see you out there sometime. NOTHING, AND I SAY AGAIN NOTHING BEATS THE SUNSET OVER THE BACK DECK,,,,cheers..martin

[Tspringer]

WOW. Jaw dropping WOW. Skill, dedication, perseverance.... inspirational!

Rodney.... you do realize that you are quite insane, right? I mean truly mad.


I mean that in the best of ways, the world needs more such lunatics. I look forward to seeing and learning more and wish you the best of luck!

The next time my wife complains about my latest nutty sounding scheme, I will show her your website!



Terry

[Alan Wheeler]

Yeah I have seen the "radio tower" type mast. Seems to work ok. Another sailboat (yacht we call them in NZ) getting near your size, used a spiral welded steel well pipe. It also seems to work OK and was certainly cheap. With a boat that size and weight, using a steel pipe doesn't seem to affect it's stability.

[markpj23]

Congratulations Rodney on a tremendous project that's coming together for ya!!

I have to ask - why couldn't the utility companies drop the wires for you along the route to the shipyard? I've seen that done several times around here during house moves, etc.

[yachtrodney]

Yes - generally for an over high load - you will need the Electricity - and nowadays the Cable and Phone (Telstra &Optus) companies to survey the route and to lift or move wires as needed.

When the yacht was started we did not have the cable and Pay TV, and Internet Cables that criss-cross every street in the land (haphazardly going from one side to the other as customers came online) and it was not a factor that I (who had built and moved a previous 55' yacht from the same location) even considered - otherwise I would have designed the yacht differently. As it was I had seriously considered actually doing a flush deck design.

When the time came about 4 years ago for the yacht to be moved to the water - surveys of the route were done by the utility companies - and it was found that the Electricity Commission would need to lift a lot of wires and to remove and replace a couple of sets and the quoted price for the whole exercise was about $20,000. It was however all the others that were the problem.

All the other cables were allowed to be a metre lower than the Electricity wires and there were now literally thousands of them between us and the water - and more going up every day.

Both Telstra and Optus said that it was now an impossible task - and that no amount of money could get the wires disconnected and re-installed - with the time and disruption - and customers affected.

You should also bear in mind that we were 30 miles from the sea - in the Western Suburbs of the Sydney Metropolitan area - and needed to traverse fully built up residential, commercial and industrial areas right across Sydney - using all roads from our own back road to highways and motorways. This is what comes of idiots building big boats a long way from the water.

With the yacht standing at 6m of bare hull - alone - let alone on a truck - it became landlocked by it's height.

As the property where it was built belonged to old friends - and was not mine - then came the slow and difficult realization - that it had to be either moved somehow or destoyed.

It took a little longer - to convince myself that I could cut it in half.

And in case you were wondering - because of it's design - a high raised coaming - stepped deck, with superstructure - it was not possible to just 'cut some off the top'. To overcome the problem I really needed to lose about 2m of height - which meant going below the deck level - which raised then considerations of the strength and stability of the top section when it was lifted up - that it did not 'pancake' and buckle.

I went to the trucking company and said 'you tell me what height this yacht has to be - so that we don't need ANYONE'S permission to take it anywhere'. And they told me that if I could keep the finished load under 4.5m then I could take it anywhere I Iiked in Australia - no problem.

So after some more careful consideration - I settled on a cut line of 11' 6'' or about 3.5m - which happened also to have been a strategic level line in the yacht itself - being the height of the engine room roof/upper saloon floor - and also about a foot above various benchs and counters - and about 1 metre above most of the lower floor level. It was also about 2'6'' above the design waterline and about 4' below the deck level - which would give it a substantial skirt of hull and internal walls to keep the form rigid when lifted.

It was also as convenient a working hip height both inside and outside on the scaffolding - as you could find.

Rodney

PS When the yacht was transported - we needed NO ONE'S permission - just as promised.
And only had police and other escorts for the oversized load - as both sections took up the entire 3 lanes - and all of every intersection - on it's journey. Not a wire in the land hung in our way.

[yachtrodney]

This is just to see how - it goes - putting a photo into the reply.

Firstly a correctly sized one at 550w to fit the window
with a link to a larger one



Then a larger one at 900w



Now another one as an attachment


Let's see how they each come out

Rodney

[Alan Wheeler]

It maybe easier to upload phto's to the Gallery and then provide a link to them. You can upload a larger file size to the gallery and once they are in there, it is easy for us all to find them again. Plus the Gallery scrolls across the top of the page, so everyones photo's get seen every now and then.

[yachtrodney]

Thanks Alan - but it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

I can see what you say about putting them in the Forum Gallery - and the accessibility and exposure - but I need to upload them to thedogpaddler website anyway - and it's seems just as easy to link directly to them either way.

But I will definitely send some to the gallery soon too.

I was just interested to see how they displayed after I read another thread - and being as easy as it is - I wonder why more people don't include pictures - all the time.

Rodney