After more than a year of research and crossing an ocean and now that we are moving from general concept drawings to construction drawings, we’re actually looking for yachting and/or diving enthusiast wanting to own a piece of exciting conversion project.
Initial work on the vessel - mostly removal of fishing-related equipment and isolation - has completed at the Navtech ship yard in Cartagena.
To keep going we seek equity partners. Participations are backed up by preferred shares, providing you with solid collateral. For more information, check out the post for investors.
I just returned from Cartagena with some updates in the ‘Pictures‘ section (top menu). Work has fallen a little behind but they are working hard to catch up. Converting a trawler into an expedition yacht is BIG job in all aspects. It feels like it only gets bigger :-). But the largest part of the 1st phase is done. We still have to remove quite a few items from the engine room (mostly DC-related equipment and a complete generator set but that should be wrapped up in next 7 days.
When all this is done, we’ll do a new inclining experiment to establish a new base line for our current situation and feed the numbers to our computer.
Below our project supervisor on site who’s job it will be the next few days to get this auxiliary engine with AC and DC generator out of the engine room. We plan to burn a hole in the forward bulkhead. This will be the safest and fastest way to get this equipment and all the DC-equipment out of there.
I also met with the Lloyds Register country manager and his staff who had visited the ship previously and they are all very enthousiastic about the project. There’s certainly a good vibe with these guys. Very helpful and friendly and we look forward to working with them.
In the next phase, while we get our drawings made and approved, we’ll advance some steel work like creating a new fuel oil day tank, convert the midships fuel wing tanks into stabilizer rooms, add a new bulkhead and start planning on moving the engine room forward bulkhead. We’ll also plan some changes on the fresh water system and the floor of the former fish hold.
Work enough for Navtech in the near future!
(see pictures at end of this page)
At this point - last update April 4 - we are pretty much past the design stage as far as distribution of spaces goes. We had some extra work to do as ran into issues with MCA damage stability rules and had to move our forward engineroom bulkhead aft. This will cause a lot of extra work but the great side-effect is that we get more space for our guest rooms. About 45 cm (1 1/2 ft) more lenght for each guestroom.
The 2 guestrooms in the back can easily be converted into an owners guestroom. The 2 guestrooms in the front are for special crew that are not passengers.
Our general arrangement plans can be seen in PDF format and AutoCAD. A construction drawing (current situation) is also available. This is our line plan of the front and side and we also have our shell expansion (showing thickness of hull plating) available. We also have a concept drawing of our galley (in PDF).
To see the vessel in 3D, click here or on the first image below to check to see a manipulable model of the vessel. Yes, it takes a few seconds to load, depending on the speed of your connection it is really very illustrative!
Drag with the left mouse button to move it; use the right mouse button to zoom in or out
Press the right mouse button and use the arrows on your keyboard to move the model inside the window
If you see a warning about installing some unknown piece of software, that’s normal: go ahead, it IS safe to install.
At any case, if you have trouble with the above link, here are a few screen shots.
We’ll update these files as we go. Comments are always welcome at thorwald @ expeditionyacht . org.
Last week I attended the Seatrade Cruise convention in Miami Beach. While this convention primarily focuses on the cruiseship industry (quite a different dresscode than the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show !!) it has a lot of interesting product we can also apply on yachts.
To name a few, think low maintainance furniture, products to give glass new life, high-tech glass coatings that keep heat and UV out, waste incinerators, waste water treatment, coating and flooring systems including a really awesome incredibly good teak replacement from Bolith. Also great info on sound isoloation and vibration damping. Danish manufacturer Sika had a lot of interesting products on display. And then there were lots of manufactures of bedding, fabrics, wall covering materials and items for interior design. And if you want to impress your guests with a nice scent on your yacht, check out Microfresh. Very innovative product. Did I mention security and access systems? Some very innovative systems out there that can also be used on yachts.
There are really a lot of beautiful materials out there that are safe (meet IMO guidelines) and easy to apply. George Fisher piping systems was also present. Awesome products that can replace most steel applications.
We also had ample opportunity to talk with the folks at Lloyds Register and get all remaining questions answered. Pictured above is a garbage & waste oil incinerator from Teamtec in Norway. Instead of carrying your waste along (and using valuable freezer space), paying fees to ’shore based facilities’ (who then dump it God knows where) this compact burns everything and is IMO-approved. Another practical AND green solution.
Imagine saving 30-50% in fuel cost when crossing the Atlantic or Pacific or while cruising in the Caribbean! Skysails from Germany has the solution to achieve that.
m.v. Beaufort, an 800 ton expedition yacht conversion shown in the picture above - I actually saw it in Cartagena last December - is partly powered by a huge kite developed by the German company Skysails. We can’t imagine a greener way to power our ship and this system is available now and in use at even bigger ships such as this 132 m (425 ft.) cargo ship.
The system can be operated from the bridge. Launch & control is achieved with a push of a button. During launch, a telescopic mast lifts the towing kite, which is reefed like an accordion from its storage department. At sufficient height the kite then unfurls to its full size and can be lauched. A winch releases the towing rope until operating altitude has been reached. The recovery process is performed in reverse order.
The system is designed for operation in windforces of 3 to 8 Beaufort. The system can be recovered, but not launched, at windforces below Beaufort 3.
Estimated cost for our particular vessel? I’ll let you know soon. Meanwhile, check out the very informative website of Skysails and the solutions they offer for yachts.
To learn more about how we plan to make this a ‘green’ ship see this blog’s environment section. Watch the video below and also check this one.
Just received a book I ordered from Hempel, the Danish coating manufacturer (# 3 in the world I think). Almost 500 pages on corrosion projection serves as the “inspector’s book of reference”. It’s the translation to English of a Norwegian training guide for certified coating inspectors. The Norwegians with their maritime history and many oil exploration platforms in the North Sea know a thing or two about corrosion protection .The book covers corrosion itself, protection measures, surface preparation and equipment, pre-treatment, application, paint coating materials but also covers topics like coating failures, thermal spraying, passive fire protection and inspection methods and equipments. Cathodic protection, both with sacrificial anodes as well as impressed current is also covered in depth.
To learn more about this form of corrosion protection, check out the informative Cathelco website. And if you want to know everything there is to know corrosion protection of your ship and about coatings, get ‘the Frisio’ book from Hempel.
Of course, there are also independent coating consulting companies that can provide independent advice and job supervision and inspection. I found these two companies in the Yacht Report that between the two of them have probably been involved with 50% of all mega yacht paint jobs:
North Sea trawlers are great for conversions to true expedition yachts. With the current fuel prices and regulations, many fishermen in Northern Europe are throwing in the towel and offering their vessels for sale at very good prices. Great ships like the one on this site can be bought for well under 1 million USD. I have good contacts in this community and if you’re interested in being part of a conversion project, drop me a line at thorwald at expeditionyacht dot org.
At the Navtech Shipyard in Cartagena we can do very cost effective conversions in USD prices
Finally the insulation foam is gone and we are seeing the bottom of it - quite literally. The yard crew now started the partial removal of the concrete floor in the center part of the fish hold. This will allow us to gain enough head room in this area when it becomes a storage area underneath the staterooms. The drawing below better explains what we plan to achieve.
We plan to go remove about 50 cm. (1 1/2 ft.) which is when we hit the top of the frames. This operation also means we are removing some ballast from the bottom of the ship. We plan to add weight again but at a higher location and more forward. This will help to reduce our roll time (more comfort), compensating for all the weight removed from the main deck. By moving it more forward, we also get the bow down a little which will give us more speed.
