Thank you everyone for your welcome and congrats - it's good to be back amongst the folk who really can comprehend what is involved.
It surprises even me - every time I look at some of the pictures - and you're quite right to question my sanity - as I have done many times along the way.
I appreciate you taking the time to have a look at thedogpaddler.com - which I started out doing just to learn - and has developed as I have - to now contain thousands of pages and photos. But in all of that - there are few of the yacht and the construction of all these years. That was simply to preserve some measure of privacy.
I am however, a prolific
email newsletter sender and those who have been on the
email list of friends and
family have followed the whole 'cutting' of the yacht over the last few years - I'm sure with disbelief. But all with hopeful support that I would achieve the goal.
There have been
photo albums of the yacht - it's surroundings - and in and about - uploaded - but not listed on thedogpaddler menus and here are two of them:
Onboard and Inside yacht - large album of photos:
ON THE YACHT - PHOTO ALBUM
There is also a 'YachtViews' Flash album at the following link:
YachtViews Web Gallery
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In answer to a few questions:
Loose items - and everything in place:
Little Penny and I lived aboard the yacht for the last few years - and even right up to sleeping in the
cockpit of the top half parked on the side of the road - waiting for the 'Midnight Run' - under police escort (2) and six other escort cars - for the 2 sections to be transported the 30 miles to the shipyard.
You will see from photos in the albums above - that I had to carry out the cutting
work in such a way - that I could still eat and sleep as normal at the end of the day - and the yacht was for the most part kept liveable despite the horrendous task of cutting ferro-cement walls every now and then.
And even though - a fair bit of time was spent in packing and stowing loose things - from
books to pantry items - the yacht was built after all - to be a yacht - and to go to sea. So that things like bookshelves, video shelves, glass display cabinets, and cupboards - and all things like TV's, microwave,
stove etc - are all built and secured - yachtlike. It should not be possible for books and videos to fall out from their restrained shelves.
So you'd like to think that travelling on the back of a giant
trailer - along highways and motorways should not pose any problem for a lot of the
gear. Beyond that - all the loose
gear and stuff you see in the bottom half of the yacht - was pretty safe - and only a couple of small things could have blown out.
I was more concerned that it might rain - than anything else - but it was predicted to be the 3 totally dry days - and so it was.
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In the next few days I will be sending out another email with a further selection of photos I've just done of the rest of the lifting - loading - and moving. There are some incredible shots.
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What did you use to rejoin the halves?
Please forgive me for taking an easy way out - but I will copy here - part of a letter I sent to an old schoolfriend a while back - for your info:
[Penny & I
live aboard the 75' - 80 ton ferrocement yacht that I have designed & built from nothing, alone.
It has been now more than 12 years of construction - the yacht has been ready to go to the water - and operational - for a few years - but it is now too tall - at 20' (6m) of hull height - to be transported to the sea - with the many thousands of cable/internet wires that now crisscross every street - and they are all nearly 2m lower than the electricity wires - this situation, which has develeoped since the yacht was started - was not foreseen - or I would have designed the yacht differently.
The only solution - has been to cut the yacht completely in half - horizontally - like an egg carton - about 3' above the waterline - so that it can be transported on 2 trucks - with no limitations - anywhere - and then rejoined at the waterside shipyard (in literally a few hours and days) & launched.
This task - is something that has never been done before - anywhere - and every step of it is new and unknown - and every part of the process is at my design & doing alone.
You should bear in mind that the yacht was fairly completed and ready to go - when this transport problem became impossible - so there are things such as full bathroom, tiled
shower room, bedroom, full kitchen, cupboards, display cabinets, bookshelves, walls, furniture, etc - plus all
electrical,
plumbing, hydraulics - built in, and fitted to the yacht. (the finished yacht has 3-4 split levels, several bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full walkaround
engine room, etc)
Every part of the yacht - and every aspect of the
interior - has now been cut in half - and many hundreds of steel reconnecting plates have been individually fabricated, shaped, painted, drilled - for the app. 2000 bolts that will be used to rejoin the two halves - in the hope that the finished bonded boat will be again as strong as is possible - and capable of fulfilling its role as a large ocean going,
liveaboard, cruising yacht.
The hull itself will have a
stainless steel belt all around - reconnecting the 2 halves - with 600 ss coach-head bolts and steel
backing plates on the inside - every one of the 30 internal
rib frames each side will be rejoined with 2 large steel plates and a dozen bolts on each.
You can see from the yacht albums - where the
interior has been cut and drilled - and also the progress of the cutting of the outer hull itself - which is now almost completed. I have been sending out regular photos of the cutting
work and have included a couple for you.
This whole job of cutting the yacht in half - and rejoining it - has taken several years of work - and has proved to be more difficult than the building - it has also tested me - as I've struggled to proceed with it - and constantly lacked the motivation to 'destroy' what I spent so long to create properly - and have delayed and procrastinated the cutting at every step - looking for anything else to do instead - (and the computer has been a large part of that time wasting) - where previously, I spent every day - almost 365 days a year working on the yacht to build it - I have frequently - in the last year or two - spent only a day or 2 a week - on the actual 'cutting the yacht in half' job - and will look to do ANY other
project on the boat than that. (see for example the big job just finished of doing the 6' x 6' bowfitting &
anchor winches)
But anyway, we are nearing the end - which is a mystery - yet to unfold - will it be success - or total disaster - only time will tell - but either way it will be fascinating to see.]
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I have used Sikaflex
Marine Sealant Adhesive - on all cut joins - but it is only intended to be a
sealant barrier - and does not give any structural strength. Sikaflex
Polyurethane was used - rather than an
epoxy - because some moverment and flexing is inevitable - and there is no give with
epoxy - it would crack - so a 'flexible' sealant must be used. The integrity of the hull will - I hope - be recovered by the hundreds of steel plates and thousands of bolts - which I am in the process of re-applying.
You should also bear in mind that the bottom section of the hull - is a floating 'yacht unto itself'. With the cut being nearly 3' above the waterline - and as you can see from the photos - is the floating, bouyant section - and the re-addition of the top - has simply pushed it further down to it's waterline.
All the outside SS belt plates will be sealed down - every coach
head bolt will be sealed down - and all plates will be sealed and cleaned around the edges. And when done - the appearance of the SS belt and the rows of coachhead bolts is quite OK.
The yacht - even now - just held together by a number of wall plates and the guide plates - seems extremely strong. As they had to use the barge with buffers - to try and push the yacht sideways - by the top - to get it out of the Travel
Lift Dock - to where we are now - when we were sitting on the bottom - and even using the full force of the barge - and pushing the yacht over sideways - it didn't seem to bother it at all.
I have always taken reassurance from the fact that there are a number of full height and width - ferrocement walls inside the yacht - that can be rejoined using large steel plates either side - and perhaps 40 half inch bolts to the metre. There are also 2' long steel plates - either side of each of the 30 frames on both sides of the yacht - which have 12 bolts in each one as well.
It does seem to me - that I have done as much as anyone could do - to regain the strength of the hull.
But nevertheless - it IS a completely unknown situation - and only time will tell.
I have no doubt the yacht will have no trouble motoring anywhere in calm waters - but there's certainly a lot of sealing, plating and bolting to be done - before I would venture into the arms of the open sea.
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Rejoining the halves in the water?
Yes - I must admit - for a long time - I searched to find a place and a way - to do it on land - and then put the yacht in the water. Always it was either inaccessible to us - because of the size of the yacht and trucks - or the cost was astronomical and beyond me.
To have launched on my own with cranes - as I did with my first yacht 22 years ago - was now financially out of my reach.
This was really the only place - that we could guarantee to get to - but the problem here was that the Travel Lift crane had a capacity of 68 tons - and could NOT lift and launch the entire yacht of 75 tons.
I knew all these circumstances all along - and devised a method of using curved and bent guide plates - bolted to strategic walls and frames - both longtitudinally and across ways - that would guide the top section into it's correct position (on land or water). Remember - there are over 2000 bolts that must line up perfectly - there can be NO ERROR. And with sealant and steel spacer strips in place - there can only be CORRECT or total disaster.
Once the top section engaged the sets of guide plates - and began to be lowered the last foot - it was guided and locked - in every direction - so that when it was say - 25mm or an inch or so above home - the entire 2 sections were locked firmly into alignment and MUST be absolutely correct.
Here is where - doing it on water - can be to your advantage. Provided it is reasonably calm (which it was) - then - as the top section engages the guide plates - the bottom section in the water is free to move and self align. This proved to work perfectly - because the Travel Lift operator was calling out - that he couldn't see the cut line - to see if it was lined up. I called out to him to just 'hold' - and allow the bottom section to adjust. Then we lowered it to within the last couple of inches and waited again - as the bottom and top locked themselves perfectly into the guide plates - and stopped moving. Then when the top was 'dropped' the last little bit - it was perfectly aligned.
It is really quite unbelievable to see just how correctly it is all aligned - even the timber work of the bookshelves is so correct - you can run your finger down and hardly feel the cut - it worked better than I'd ever imagined.
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But rest assured - we will not be going to sea - until I'm absolutely certain the yacht is as 'seaworthy' as I can make it. For now - I am just so happy to be back on the water. Even if it's just anchored in the Bay. I still say - that the 'worst day on the water' is still better than 'the best day in the paddock'.
kind regards
Rodney & Penny ('I like paddocks')
PS I cruised from 88-91 aboard my previous 55'
ferro yacht 'Duke' - through Solomons. Micronesia, Truk,
Guam,
Hong Kong,
Thailand - then selling the yacht in
Hong Kong and returning home - only to start the madness all over again - even worse.