Delos 2.0 cost

[JustMurph]

Longi make good panels. They will perform.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by Muaddib1116

Does anyone have any real insight into either Delos or the custom aluminum boat building world that could give me an estimate of what building a custom aluminum ~50ft catamaran like Delos 2.0 would cost? No idea what the costs in Australia are like, for labor or materials. There are obviously also other operations like in South Africa and Asia. My gut says something close to 2mil for the de Villiers design and the Australian build.

Most likely around 500.000 Australian dollars for the hull shell.
As a boatbuilder, highly experienced in fitting out and constructing metal yachts, the total ' sail away' price tag would be around 2 million AUD
Labour, materials, equipment, taxes, legal fees and possible litigation costs.

[davidlight]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

You can build cheaper in Asia or Africa, but quality will be different. The Dutch thing is prime - documented and with insurance in place.

Respectfully, this simply isn't true and a total red herring purported by Europeans. There are as many qualified and experienced boat builders with remarkable artisans in Asia and Africa alike. Ironically many of these boatyards are owned and/or operated by European and American entities who are seeking better value without compromising on their brand promise.

It's about having a clearly documented standard for construction; you can only manage what you measure.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I need to look up the order.


Imported from China. A large pack of 24V panels. Alloy frame. Same thing as they use in off grid commercial installations.


Found the make : LONGI, Pmax 425 (black), 21 kg per unit, 22% eff (module)



We can fit either 25 or else 11 each side. I voted 11 a side as this leaves a catwalk below the boom and all the way to the end of the boom - which is better to arrange the sail, access the sheet blocks, etc. Also much better when we will bend on and remove the main.

Wow! 25 panels that is over 1/2 a tonne not including the cabling. Can you really fit 11 down each side. Side by side with no spaces that is 12.5 metres of coach roof. Their website suggests only 3.5KW of solar that is about 8-9 Longi panels.

[JustMurph]

barnakiel is talking about a different boat....

[Muaddib1116]

Yeah, but I wonder what type of cat design it is. Performance cat? Daggerboards? Barnakiel mentions carbon spars and synthetic rigging, in which case, 1000+lbs of panels relatively high up is an odd choice. It's much more expensive, but walk-on flexible panels would save at least half that weight.

[Tupaia]

Delos 2 seems to have a few odd features for a cat.

The short wide barn door rudders with skegs are unusual. Ignoring the poor efficiency of the rudders they will put unnecessarily extra load on the AP. Cats run on rails requiring powerful turning force that is best achieved by deep rudders and by making them semi balanced reduces the input required the exact opposite of what proposed for Delos 2.

Pairing the short rudders with shallow mini keels can also lead to instability when surfing downwind in heavy weather. The shallow rudders cavitate in the surf, offset a little by the skegs maybe, while the keels dig in and result is a 180, the multihull equivalent of a broach.

Just some observations.

[ozolli]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

Delos 2 seems to have a few odd features for a cat.

The short wide barn door rudders with skegs are unusual. Ignoring the poor efficiency of the rudders they will put unnecessarily extra load on the AP. Cats run on rails requiring powerful turning force that is best achieved by deep rudders and by making them semi balanced reduces the input required the exact opposite of what proposed for Delos 2.

Pairing the short rudders with shallow mini keels can also lead to instability when surfing downwind in heavy weather. The shallow rudders cavitate in the surf, offset a little by the skegs maybe, while the keels dig in and result is a 180, the multihull equivalent of a broach.

Just some observations.

Totally agree with you. Low aspect ratio rudders equal low efficiency, especially behind skegs.

Better have high aspect kick-up rudders.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

Wow! 25 panels that is over 1/2 a tonne not including the cabling. Can you really fit 11 down each side. Side by side with no spaces that is 12.5 metres of coach roof. Their website suggests only 3.5KW of solar that is about 8-9 Longi panels.

Yes. There is enough space.


The area runs from the bridgedeck's front end (nearly) to the cockpit's aft end (actualy some 3 ft beyond). We decided to leave the central 'catwalk' empty - to manage the boom and sail easily.



Weight is no issue - ask the boatbuilder the weight of a rigid grp or alloy roof from the bridgedeck to the cockpit's end. You will be surprised. I was. We could have shaved more weight going frameless, but from my research frameless ones do not last well, and they also require more structural support over the cockpit area, and so all potential benefit of frameless is gone.



The anchor chain is 12mm which is 3.4 kg per meter. This boat will carry 2*100 m chain. Add two anchors matched to her displacement.


Then think again, a 10 kW genset is about 400 kg, before you add all the attached gear. Then think of the diesel weight NOT required (due to the solar overkill.


Weight is not an issue when you compare with the alternatives (genset, fuel cells, etc). And the power is as I stated. Give or take. 10 kW.


No smoke, no noise. Inductive cooking.


Energy-wise, given how and where the owner wants to use the boat, this will work.



Our big challenge is what battery technology to use. The owner does not want Lithium. Me neither. And the alternatives are all less efficient (worse energy density). So we are kind of stuck. But working on it.


Cheers,
b.

[Muaddib1116]

Sounds like a beast of a boat

[JustMurph]

Very interesting. Are you able to share any images or renders? I'm curious!

So, why no lithium?

There's sooooo much misinformation out there. The big risk as I see it is people dropping lithiums into old wiring systems that weren't designed for it. Given this is a scratch build and you can do it properly from the beginning, you end up with something legitimately far far safer than a conventional lead acid system.

[catsketcher]

Originally Posted by ozolli

Totally agree with you. Low aspect ratio rudders equal low efficiency, especially behind skegs.

Better have high aspect kick-up rudders.

I was surprised when the Delos owners got a guy who had designed only one cat to design their cat. Having seen many early designs from different designers I can't see why anyone would want an early design because the designer does not know the silly things you might ask for.

The Delos guy was talking about how it was silly that the cockpit cover did not totally cover the cockpit on the first version of his cat, and he was going to "make it much better" by increasing the roof size to stop the outside cushions getting wet. There was no talk about access into and out of the cockpit through the gap between deck and roof, or sight lines to the rig, working extras, getting sheet leads correct and a host of other potential snags. It's like what Donald Rumsfeld said all those years ago - you have known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The job of an experienced designer is to ensure you get told of all the unknown unknowns.

Because both the designer and the Delos crew have not done lots of cat sailing, they probably don't know that one of the times the rudder comes under max load is broad reaching in large seas. The windward rudder often gets very aerated as seas pass under the aft third of the hull. This occurs just as the boat needs a little extra helm. So if you have short rudders that are inefficient then your leeward rudder (which is inefficient already) will be extra loaded by the short windward rudder becoming useless just when you need the helm to give some extra oomph on the wave.

I find it hard to watch videos made by people gleefully talking about the "improvements" they make on the boat with no talk of the juggling of different issues. All design is a spiral that requires careful balancing of competing priorities, but you wouldn't know it with the low standard of most videos produced by influencers today.

cheers

Phil

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I need to look up the order.


Imported from China. A large pack of 24V panels. Alloy frame. Same thing as they use in off grid commercial installations.


Found the make : LONGI, Pmax 425 (black), 21 kg per unit, 22% eff (module)



We can fit either 25 or else 11 each side. I voted 11 a side as this leaves a catwalk below the boom and all the way to the end of the boom - which is better to arrange the sail, access the sheet blocks, etc. Also much better when we will bend on and remove the main.


Otherwise attached Victron hardware, mostly.


The panels are EUR 50 per unit plus IVA (tax). From China, when you split a palet (36) with another build. As we did.



b.

Good choice, the Longli are top notch panels. i have them too, just the bifacials. And ouput is above rating.
Can you share a picture or a drawing how they place them.
Are they integrated into the roof or just mounted on top of the roof.
I don't get it why no cat manufacturer makes the roof of cockpit and overhang from bifacial solar panels. Over cockpit Just a structure where you place on each side a row of panels and between the frame of 2 solar panels a stripe of bitumen and they will be sealed. Just a middle section where you walk on to reach sails
Overhang basically solar arch integrated into the roof.
On a 55ft that would be behind the traveller 700W bifacial panels over the whole width of the roof, each is 135cm wide so 6 or 7 panel fit. That's alone with 6 panels 4200W +20% from bottom = 5000W. Each side over the cockpit 3 of them too and you have your 10kw output.
The bifacial with glass on both side are stable enough to act as roof skin, you don't need to make a roof with a skin and bolt them on. Just make a big frame, inside that frame the structure is bolted or riveted so when you in 20 years need to replace the panels you can easily adapt that to new sizes or if then the glue on flexible panel work just close the frame with a thin roof with flexible then.
But till now Noone did that and instead falling into the continuous trap of the flexible panels.

[ozolli]

Originally Posted by catsketcher

All design is a spiral that requires careful balancing of competing priorities, but you wouldn't know it with the low standard of most videos produced by influencers today.

The design spiral explained by Juan K :
https://www.juanyachtdesign.com/how-we-work/

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by Muaddib1116

Sounds like a beast of a boat

Sounds more like a barge. SA/D ratio of 24 given the displacement of 16.3T. I am sceptical that the final displacement will even come close to this.