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We’d like to create a bridge with a smart layout that’s easy to move around and has all the necessary equipment without overdoing it.  Not a bridge designed for the magazines but a bridge that’s great to work on at night passing through the English Channel.

Right below you can see our first effort at creating this “perfect” bridge.  We got good feedback from readers and now moved to a 2nd draft with a few big changes.  For the better we hope and we invite you again to comment.

For starters, we added the side doors.  This was something I felt was missing for quite some time but I didn’t quite know how to fix it until I got inspired by a bridge lay-out of Lars Modin Design.  Especially when mooring these doors will improve the traffic flow.  We also moved the chart area to the rear of the bridge, combining with with a bigger ‘office’ space that doesn’t interfere with the flow of people and can be used at night as well without blinding anybody using a curtain.  And we added a little “coffee station” which will also have a small fridge.  The toilet is 10 steps away behind the bridge.

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After completing the first stage or our trawler-to-yacht conversion at the Navtech “shipyard”  in Cartagena  - a traumatic experience I can assure you -we’re now back in Panama.  It took us a few days to get the ship ready for departure and we enjoyed great weather along the way. Besides a little main engine fuel problem along the way the  trip was uneventful.

 As you can see, we are now anchored safely in the beautiful Bay of Portobelo.

The ship has been stripped from all fishing-related gear, it’s rubbing strikes, wood on deck  and all the DC equipment which is not needed any more (no more DC-motor powered fishing winches).  

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Dear readers,

It’s been some time since my last post.  Been busy with other things like the Balboa Inn (www.thebalboainn.com) among others but things are moving. 

The big news is that we are going to move the vessel from Cartagena Colombia to Panama and do the conversion under own management.  The Navtech shipyard in Colombia is being sold and we’re not quiet sure what the new management will bring.  One of the reasons we decided to go to Navtech was their Dutch owners who have been very cooperative with our project.  With them out of the picture, we feel Panama is a better option.  We have learned the logistics of living in Panama and doing the conversion in Cartagena brings its own set of challenges.  

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Since the last Ft. Lauderdale Boat show I’ve “dived” into the question of how to make Nitrox on board.  I visited the stand of Brownie’s at the show where they had the Triton sub on display and we got talking about their Nitrox solution.   Getting home I started doing a little more research.

There are basically two ways to make Nitrox: partial pressure blending and using a membrane.  For practical and safety reasons we stick to membrane systems.  And for reliability and maintenance reasons I stick to German-made compressor equipment.

To make Nitrox (officially ‘enhanced air nitrox’, you first use a low presssure compressor to pump air through a membrane which takes out part of the nitrogen and produces an ‘enhanced’ airmix that contains typically 32% or 36% oxigen.

It is then brought up to 4.500 psi (31o bar) with high pressure compresssors and put into the Nitrox storage tanks.  See the schematic drawing below. 

The problem with making Nitrox is that by compressing air with a low pressure compressor to push it through the membrane it gets a lot warmer.  In fact, some membrane filters need you to even heat the air before it enters the membrane.  This mean you can end up with Nitrox that’s warmer than the manufacturer of the high pressure (HP) compressor recommend it to be.  And hot Nitrox also shortens the service life of your filters pretty dramatically.  So how do you keep that Nitrox cool so it won’t ruin your compressor or loosing your warranty on your HP compressor? 

Another issue is getting the oil out of the air before it gets into the membrane.  Oil and nitrox membranes are not good friends: the first one shortens the life of the last one considerably.  I’ll be trying to find out how to take the most oil from the air before it reaches the membrane and how many hours I can expect from the membrane with a certain minimum oil content in the air.

Different companies, different solutions.  I’ll ‘dive’ more into that in my next post when I have received feedback from all the different providers.   I’m looking both into after market “yacht” products and adaptations as well as off-the-shelve industrial /commercial solutions.   And I checked into water cooled compressors – both after market like those of ‘Nitrox’ Bob Olson and industrial breathing air compressors.  It’s going to be an interesting comparison.

Occasionally when doing my research and preparation for this project I run into a company or person that really stands out when it comes to helpfulness, speed of reply, in-depth knowledge and last but not least,  an informative website.   Recent examples of such an experience were the people at Palux in Germany (galley equipment), Triton water (sewage treatment plants) and Lift Emotion (elevators and dumb waiters for maritime use). 

My latest  such experience is with Manta Maritime,  a British company headed by Anthony Gradwell.  Anthony is a naval architect, professional engineer, former Lloyds Register surveyor and worked 5 years with he Cayman Islands Shipping registry (the largest registry for commercial yachts)  most of it as lead surveyor. 

Since 2006 he runs his own company - Mantra Maritime - dedicated to providing “effective yacht safety solutions through innovative and practical guidance”.

When looking for some info on SOLAS and MCA issues I ran into Anthony’s site and spend over an hour reading the information he had available for download on his website.  While I consider myself pretty well informed about the issue his site really brings it all together.   Handy compliance charts and guides clarify many of the issues that have a lot of people confused.

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Being an expedition yacht able to carry a helicopter you tend to end up in places where jet fuel for your helicopter is not readily available.  So we decided early on we wanted to be able to carry some extra jet fuel to be able to refuel the helicopter.  In an earlier post about this subject, we wrote we had planned to adapt two former diesel fuel tanks for this purpose. Class rules require a cofferdam to surround the jet fuel tank as well as a double hull if the tank is on the outside like in our case.

Our initial idea was to basically add plating to the inside of the tank  walls and hull to create the cofferdam space (about 20 cm wide)  and make this hull inspectionable with an inspection camera like this one from Ridgid .  Making the cofferdam wider to allow access would mean ending up with almost no fuel storage space and rules require you can inspect a cofferdam but don’t specifically say how big it has to be.  But how to keep corrosion at bay and what about not being able to weld this plating on both sides? 

So we started looking at other solutions like a tank we could remove.  To store about 3 to 4 m3 of jet fuel (780-1038 gl.), one big tank would not be practical (how to get it in there?)  Several smaller tanks?  To start with, that would clearly violate the KIS principle.  But then we learned about bladder tanks and we came accross the website of Australia’s Turtlepac and thought, if they can do that kind of stuff with a bladder tank – like throwing filled tanks out of helicopters - it will work for us!  The obvious advantage of a bladder tank in our application is that when empty, you can easily remove it through the manhole and inspect the outer tank!

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Scheduled maintenance of the machinery and equipment on yachts is not a topic you read very much about.  Ads for crew uniforms outrank those for  yacht maintenance services of software  a factor 100 to 1 it seems.  Given the expenses you will run into if there’s no regular servicing of your equipment on a yacht, this is surprising or maybe  telling about the way maintenance on yacht is planned - or not.

Being a former marine engineer I have no probleem seeing the advantages of scheduled maintenance and you can look at my earlier post on this topic where I discuss several software packages that make managing this process a lot easier.

One of these packages, Idea Yacht from Sprectra – my favorite - just got an new ‘light’ version.  For only Euro 490 (almost USD 750) you now get the basic but essential modules to run a solid planned maintenance software package. See the image below with the main menus of each package, illustrating the differences.

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Still, this is a package that needs a lot of planning and a solid engineering background, not something common on many smaller yachts (60-100 ft. range) where often it’s just the skipper doing all the engineering besides running the boat.  For those captains and/or yacht owners that need practical, hands-on advice or a little more hand-holding to get properly schedule maintenance going, I found a very good alternative in Superyacht Support Inc., a Ft. Lauderdale-based company.   

Founded by John Vergo, a former Royal Navy engineer, an experienced megayacht captain and engineer and a former fleet manager for Camper & Nicholsons, he knows a thing or two about scheduled yacht maintenance.  This firm specializes in helping yacht owners setting up custom planned maintenance schedules, safety training manuals and mini ISM systems.

Check out his website or drop him a line. You’ll find him very helpful, friendly and his in-depth experience can potentially safe you a lot of money, headaches and avoid lost charters.

We’ve been looking for a yacht sub for some time and recently ran into the VAS submarine models from GSE Subs srl in Italy, a mostly military contractor with a 30-year pedigree of building submarines.  In the US they are represented by Nautilus Underwater Systems. The people at Uboatworx in the Netherlands also upgraded their design recently.  Add the line of personal subs from SeaMagine in California and you now have some real choices when looking for a certified personal submarine from companies that have gone well beyond nice 3D models or unstable models with very minimum freeboard.

So I decided to dedicate a post to comparing these 3 models.  Of course, there are  also the SeaMagine submarines which I have covered in an earlier post.

The most affordable entry in this field is C-Quester 3.  At about Euro 550 K you get a 3-seat  sub that is certified by Germanischer Lloyd.  The Quester 3 can also be configured to take the pilot and 3 passengers but while making this attractive in commercial use, I doubt it will be very comfortable. 

There’s also a 340 kg payload limitation so ideally this 3rd passenger is a kid and the airconditioning needs to work.    With its new lithium batteries it now has a very practical 6 hours of autonomy and 96 hours of life support. 

With a maximum operational depth of 100 m. (300 ft.) you can cover any area where you typically would like to make recreational dives.

Weighing only 4.500 kg and relatively small, this is the only personal sub you can put on a big yacht as an afterthought.  You may need a bigger crane but not much more.

The main drawback of the Quester models is its limited downward view forward due to the  seat location.  It won’t be a major issue for general sightseeing when you’re between a shoal of sharks or passing by a coral reef wall as you can see on the picture in an earlier post.  But for but more serious work, including picking up things you’ll have a problem.  But then again, you save almost $ 1.5 -2 million  depending on the configuration compared to the next in line, the SeaMagine Triumph.

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