Hi all,
I thought I would start a post to
record all my adventures as I look to create a standard baseline on my
new boat.
I have a 94 foot ex
New Zealand navy boat that was meticulously converted over 17 years by her previous owner. The
boat has been all over the pacific and was idle for a few years in
Auckland before I purchased her.
Currently we are on the slipway in Whangerei, completing all the general
maintenance that I think the boat needs, after spending the last 10 weeks, living and cruising the Hauraki Gulf here in
New Zealand.
So - to start, I have a little treat - this is the slipway video. I have 10 weeks experience driving a 100 tonne ship and have been
learning quickly. She is twin screw but no bowthruster.
List of jobs we are completing or have completed with a little bit of info about each. I'm going to be really upfront and share costs and labour details with you all so perhaps to better inform anyone else wanting to complete similar tasks.
I'm not made of
money, but I budgeted to have the first major amount of
work done professionally to establish a baseline that I can then
work from and also to get an opinion of those in the
trade on the setup of the boat + correct any irregularities that the previous owner just 'lived with'.
1. Slipped the boat to find it in need of some serious bottom love. The bottom of the boat had a lot of unwelcome
marine life. On close
inspection and spending $3500
water blasting the
hull with 5000 PSI with the intention of just putting on more antifoul - the
paint literally just fell away. Years and Years of antifoul and no recoating the
hull in 17 years meant I was uneasy that just putting on more antifoul was going to work. Zincs, all 10 of them were completely gone, just the fastening bolts remaining. The wharf we live at has just had a
rebuild so I can contribute 12 months of heavy welding essentially right next to the boat to that I beleive.
I felt I needed to know what was under all the
paint so we spent 2 days sandblasting the hull back to
steel.
Well - What we found was an absolutely immaculate, smooth and solid hull with nothing more than 1 pencil thin pit in one spot (which we confirmed was exterior and then filled by welding).
This was the navys 4th boat in this class and a lot of lessons were learnt during the first 3. I might also mention now that the shipyard we hauled out at was the shipyard and same slipway that the boat was launched on 37 years ago.
We coated the hull in Carboline 636 by Altex Coatings :
https://altexcoatings.co.nz/frontend...&productid=346 : x 2 coatings and then 1 red coat of Sea Barrier 3000 by Altex and then a black coating of Sea Barrier 3000.
https://altexcoatings.co.nz/frontend...221&marketid=0
The end result is stunning - I have placed pictures of the hull and the painting + the coating in a timelapse in my gallery on CF.
2. The rudders were dropped for 2 reasons, firstly I wanted the
rudder stocks, bearings and housing checked and cleaned. The Port
rudder has been leaking into the tiller
bilge for years, and on
inspection we discovered some play. We removed the rudders, which had some holes in them we found, so they were given some love, welded up, pressure tested and painted. The housings were ooozing rusty gue and this was not nice to look at. We cleaned these and the will be re fitted with the correct adjustments made to the housings.
3. We pulled the shafts with the plan to put in a dripless system for the shafts. At the moment the packing was leaking at an alarming rate, some nights filling the
bilge (more on why in a second) and this was getting on my nerves no matter how much you tightened the gland plate. On closer inspection and measurement, we decided to stick with packed glands and take control of the situation. While it was only $3500 per side for the new dripless system per side, their were some engineering challenges that would have taken a long time and been trial by fire. Not what I want just at the moment as we are only out of the
water for 3 months. What we found on removing the shafts, as old, disgusting gland packing which was obviously due for replacement some time ago.
The shafts were creack tested keyways included and found to be in great condition. What was discovered along the disassembly is that on of the bearings that sits in the bulkhead on the starboard side, had at some stage been incorrectly reinstalled. This had wrecked the bearings so we needed to replace both (they were beyond being able to be machined) @ $2400 a side.
The cutless bearings were perfect and showing no wear on the port side but the starboard side was showing almost 5mm of wear on the top of the bearing. We havefelt some rattling at certain RPM's and this could have been the reason. These were both cut out and new cutless bearings ordered.
4. The bilge system for the
generator room is currently manaul. No auto bilge. I had the electrician install and auto switch and hard wire in a
bilge pump and
sensor. Below each shaft I have fabricated 2 catch boxes for any drips, which trickle down into a central catchment to be pumped. This was based on a design by the previous owner.
5. The water
tanks for fresh water, have not been opened in years. One
hatch took us 2 days to remove. (we did this carefully as not to damage the
hatch housing and simply made a new hatch. During inspection the
fresh water tank needs a bloody good clean. A few days work from some labourers trained in confined spaces and this was achieved.
6. We discovered some
electrical system 'things' that had been done with a
DIY approach. Great, but not ideal long term so I had the electrician re-do the jobs properly to standard. Just little things like incorrect guage of wire uses, incorrectly sized plugs fusesd and switches.
7.
Battery system was recently replaced. We had the incorrect settings on our 3
Victron inverter/ charges. We corrected this - Yet to test.
8. Seacocks were in great condition but one needed to be machined. If an issue had of occurred we would have not been able to close it fully. Not ideal, but now fixed.
9.
Gear box pressure
sensor was showing full pressure all the time on the bridge. $120 sensor replaced and now showing correctly.
10. Engines. I noticed what looked like something dripping from the
heat exchanger on the stbd side. So - in goes the
marine mechanic from cummins who dismantled, acid washed and repaired the unit to a like new condition. More than 50% of the waterway was completely blocked. So - for good measure - the same amount of time and
money will be spent on the port
engine so they are at the same place. Funnily enough - No leaking found, but it was clogged and blocked requiring some severe
maintenance.
11. Tappets on port
engine checked and adjusted. One engine is loud. Hoping it's top end. Not hoping it's bottom end. To Be Continued.
All in all a large amount of work being crammed into a short 20 day window.
The great news - the yard I am using in Whangerei, New Zelaand, Oceania Marine is well equipped, well staffed and incredibly affordable compared to my home port. They have all the resources to complete almost everything in house.
When the shafts are put back in, rudders put back on - we will prop speed just the props and antifoul the shafts, giving them a few days to dry before we go back in.
As I have time I will add to this thread detailing my adventures so far with everything from
Outboard on the
tender not starting and toilets not
flushing. I'll try and detail the issue and the solution with photos and videos where possible.
For now ...
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