Bruce Roberts Offshore 44

[miru71]

As I wrote, I'm prepared to trim the boat. Of course, trimming will only take place in the water when the boat is ready to sail – there's no other way. Trimming involves adding the right amount of weight to the right place. It seems logical that I won't place a half-ton cube in one place . I'll be melting down the appropriate shapes to fit the spot. Perhaps trimming won't be necessary at all.

My keel is also divided into sections. The designer provided two versions of the ballast: steel or lead. My ballast is pure steel, because lead would cost ten times as much. I managed to buy a thick steel plate (18mm) at scrap metal prices and plasma-cut it to the keel's dimensions. Each piece was individually painted and glued with Sikaflex. I filled the space between the keel plating and the stack of plates with a special polymer-infused concrete. Waterproof concrete is used for underwater construction.
I would never use expanding foam below the waterline. Sooner or later, water can get in.

[miru71]

Returning to the topic of tanks...
I would avoid tanks integrated with the hull. I have a friend who had such tanks. He didn't inspect them, and it turned out they were poorly painted and the sheet metal that served as both the tank and the hull was rusty.

When it comes to building a tank from steel or plywood and laminate/resin, painting the inside of the tank with the appropriate paint is very important. There are special paints for water tanks that are designed for contact with drinking water. I would also look for oil-resistant paint for diesel engines. When designing the tank, it's worth carefully considering the location of the inspection tanks and the number of water/diesel intake ports. I added an additional intake and return port in the diesel tank for the fuel polishing system. Another important thing (for me) is that there are no ports in the bottom of the tanks. Both intake and refueling are done from the top, reducing the risk of leaks.

[MicHughV]

For sure, back in the day, lead was around $0.60/lb, and I needed 3,000 odd pounds. This represented a lot of money to me....which I didn't have.

I found a machine shop that generated a lot of steel " punchings" ....small flat metal discs about 1"..25mm...in diameter, and I'd go by there every few weeks and pick them up.

Then I lucked out and came across an abandoned wood boat that had a big lead shoe. Myself, and another guy I knew, also building a steel boat, managed to get to get this shoe off, which we melted down into a lead bricks using a homemade furnace and bread pans.

So the punchings were thrown into the keel cavity and then the lead ingots melted over them, making a pretty solid chunk.

Prior to starting to build my boat, I had figured out....or so I thought....how much it would cost to build my boat and how long it would take and arrived at the number of $9K and one year.

Ha, was I ever wrong. In the end it took close on three years and about three times more than I had planned.

I attach some pics for your viewing pleasure.

[distantshaws]

I have a steel boat but not a roberts I have 3 diesel tanks incorporated into the hull and built of steel with baffles inside. The keel contains one of the diesel tanks which is seldom used.

Mt fresh water tanks are stainless steel and separate from hull as my black water tank is made from GRP and is also separate from the hull

[barnakiel]

A neat way to place and lock the lead in place is to pour lead balls and pour epoxy over.


Small balls make lower gc. The epoxy can be pure up to about last 4 inches and then it must be thickened.


Pour slowly in parts. This avoids any excessive heating up.


On top, epoxy is self leveling and you just paint the whole bilge with a primer.


This method gives a super clean bilge with zero risk of the ballast falling out when the boat is reversed.


b.

[jordanbettis]

Perception had stainless steel water tanks exactly like in those photos, and it has integral diesel tanks.

The diesel tanks were unpainted and apparently not even sandblasted, it looks like there's remains of mill-scale in them (I've cut the tops off).

The stainless steel tanks have caused huge problems and I'm going to have to replace all the mild steel that was anywhere near them. The problem, I think, is that small movements chafed through paint, and water got in the small spaces underneath them, causing dissimilar metal corrosion. They were installed under furniture that was impossible to remove for inspection/repair so this problem has been festering since the boat was built.

The diesel tanks have suffered no corrosion except some light surface rusting on the lid.

I'm going to scrap the non-integral water tanks and (after replacing all the destroyed plating) properly prepare them with approved topcoat (Some pigments of Amerlock 2 are approved for potable water) and use a carbon filter for drinking water.

[barnakiel]

Tanks can be welded in welded in polypropylene sheets.


This is nice where you want to avoid two different metals contact.


Also, a super simple method is to use large diameter PVC tubes for tanks. This is not always easy to use in small boats, but super easy and good econony when building water storage into larger boats.


barnakiel