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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.

Sound damping is a major challenge on our vessel.  The auxiliary engines are mounted on anti vibration mount so and enclosed to avoid airborne noise but the main engine is basically bolted on to the engine foundation.  Now, it’s a very stiff foundation but still…

So, I’m doing a lot of research on this and at some point we’ll have our plans reviewed by a sound consultants like van Cappellen in The Netherlands.  A company apparently associated with them in the USA and providing similar services is NVT (Noise Vibration Techniek (note the mix of English and Dutch language)).  Their website YachtAcoustics.com  has a great power presentation on noise reduction and the most extensive list of links to thermal-acoustic materials I’ve found so far.  Another good site for info and product information is Noisecontrol.nl from a company called Medford Noise Control.

Given the importance of noise reduction and vibration control, I’m going to dedicate a section to it on this blog and I wanted to start it by sharing with you two interesting finds in case you are building or converting a yacht.

Rockwool Marine & Offshore has a great manual an the topic of acoustics on ship.  Learn more about sound theory and solutions in this 88-page manual.  Totally free.  You can download it here.   Awesome really.

I also ran into a product by Mascoat products: Delta-db.  It’s a sound dampening coating to reduce structural and mechanical noise generated through surfaces like bulkheads.  Read more about this product here.

Looks like a great product.  Mascoat also sells an insulation coating that offers great thermal insulation and anti condensation protection. More on that in another post soon.  

Another company not to be left out in this first post is Soundown in Ft. Lauderdale, on of the leading manufacturers of products to help with noise control engineering. And great staff too!

The walls we plan to use to build our cabins are to be made by Isolamin from Sweden.  Great sound reduction, easy to install, meets all regulatory and class society standards. With todays wall covering materials you can make it look nice too.

I visited Cartagena yesterday and have some new pictures in my picture gallery. 

The 2 masts are now gone and so is all the fishing related gear on the front deck.  The removal of the main winches has also started and the removal of the isolation foam in the fish hold continues unabated.

In the forward engine room work will start to remove the harbor generator and remove all the related piping.

We also have important visitors from ABS and Lloyds – see the post below.

 Yesterday we had preliminary visits of surveyors of both ABS and Lloyd Register as part of the process to get accepted to class.  Some background info on ‘class’ first.

Classification societies are organizations that establish and apply technical standards in relation to the design, construction and survey of marine related facilities including ships and offshore structures. The vast majority of commercial ships are built and surveyed to the standards laid down by classification societies. These standards are issued by the classification society as published rules. A vessel that has been designed and built to the appropriate rules of a society may apply for a certificate of classification from that society. The society issues this certificate upon completion of relevant classification surveys. As an independent, self-regulating, externally audited, body, a classification society has no commercial interests related to ship design, ship building, ship ownership, ship operation, ship management, ship maintenance or repairs, insurance, or chartering. In establishing its rules, each classification society may draw upon the advice and review of members of the industry who are considered expert in their field.

In the second half of the 18th century, marine insurers, based at Lloyd’s coffee house in London, developed a system for the independent inspection of the hull and equipment of ships presented to them for insurance cover. In 1760 a Committee was formed for this express purpose, the earliest existing result of their initiative being Lloyd’s Register Book for the years 1764-65-66. At that time, an attempt was made to ‘classify’ the condition of each ship on an annual basis. The condition of the hull was classified A, E, I, O or U, according to the excellence of its construction and its adjudged continuing soundness (or otherwise). Equipment was G, M, or B: simply, good, middling or bad. In time, G, M and B were replaced by 1, 2 or 3, which is the origin of the well-known expression ‘A1′, meaning ‘first or highest class’.

Bureau Veritas (BV) was founded in Antwerp in 1828, moving to Paris in 1832. ‘Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping’ was reconstituted as a self-standing ‘classification society’ in 1834; rules for construction and survey were published the same year. Registro Italiano Navale (RINA) dates from 1861; American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) traces its origins back to 1862.

Adoption of common rules for ship construction by Norwegian insurance societies in the late 1850s led to the establishment of Det Norske Veritas (DNV) in 1864. Germanischer Lloyd (GL) was formed in 1867 and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) in 1899. The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) was an early offshoot of the River Register of 1913. More recent foundations have beenYugoslav Register of Shipping (now the Croatian Register of Shipping (CRS)) in 1949, China Classification Society (CCS), 1956; Korean Register (KR), 1960; and Indian Register of Shipping (IRS), 1975.

The purpose of class notations is to specify what requirements a vessel must satisfy  when being built and throughout its operational life.

Such a certification does not imply, and should not be construed as an express warranty of safety, fitness for purpose or seaworthiness of the ship.   But is is attestation that the vessel is in compliance with the standards that have been developed and published by the society issuing the classification certificate.  Needless to say those rules are based on many years of experience so building under class does guarantee that the ship in question has a lot of built-in safety and quality.

More than 50 organizations worldwide define their activities as providing marine classification. Ten of those organizations form the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). It is estimated that these ten societies, together with the one additional society that has been accorded associate status by IACS, collectively class about 94 percent of all shipping tonnage involved in international trade worldwide.

If you to bring your vessel under class AND be credible, the IACS societies are the only way to go.  They are much more expensive and very busy (= delays) but if you want the real deal and if resale value is an issue, anything less than an IACS Society and you might as well forget about class. 

International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) currently consists of 10 member societies and one associate

Given my intimate knowledge of these North Sea trawlers I have been contracted on occasions to provide purchase advice.

If you are seriously interested in  buying a trawler for conversion to a private yacht, feel free to contact me. 

The trawlers shown below are for sale.  Expect to pay between Euro 650-950 K, depending on the age (1983-89).  These are very fine trawlers, in excellent state of maintainance (yearly to 2-yearly dockings are normal).  Lengths very between 38 and 43 meters (122-139 ft) with drafts of up to 16 ft.  These are vessels for serious blue water cruising. They can be designed to be operated by a crew of 3.

I can work as your manager/technical consultant for the mechanical & electrical equipment selection and arrangements.   I can also offer building supervision provided you do the conversion at the NavTech Shipyard in Cartagena and our finishing facilities in Panama .  The Maaskant Shipyard in The Netherlands is another good option.  There you won’t need me to be on top of the job but, it will take a lot longer as they are busy with new contruction and it will cost you considerably more.

If you live in the US and want a very VERY high level finishing, you may want to consider doing the steel- and mechanical work in Cartagena and the finishing in the US or in Panama (it’s easier and cheaper to get working crew and/or parts/items to Panama).  It will still bring cost savings.  With our own conversion for instance, we estimate the removal work (steel, masting, isolation, rubbing strikes, etc.) cost about 1/4 of what it would cost in The Netherlands and is done twice as fast.

So for the conversion,  Colombia is the most cost-effective place, possibly in combination with finishing in Panama.  If you want some very high-end finishing which require special craftmanship, you can take the vessel to your country.

Contact: Thorwald Westmaas

cforms contact form by delicious:days

I guess I like video’s of vessels that can go out in any weather now that I own one myself. 

This one, in honor to all mariners, pilots and the mighty seas.

I just got back from the shipyard in Cartagena were they have started the removal of fishing related gear and materials.   It’s a lot of work, that’s for sure.  Check the pictures section (top menu) to follow up on the conversion process.

My visit also allowed me to look into the complexity of moving the engineroom forward bulkhead a few frames backward.  While it’s not a piece of cake, it’s certainly doable and will go a long way in making the engineroom space smaller in order to get us MCA compliant when it comes to damage stability.  More on this in a separate post.

The anchor chain used go partly over the top deck.  We plan to change its path so it will stay under the deck.  Below a picture of what used to be the situation. The images in the picture section show more of the below-deck area. 

Below is how we want to make it, using the same pieces that were used before.  The main advantage and reason to do this was to get rid of the equipment on the deck.  The potential disadvantage is that we may get more water below deck.  While the anchor covers the anchor box when it’s totally pulled in, the water from the jets cleaning the chain when it is hauled up will have less time to fall of the chain and unlike before, it will now wall into the guide pipe going downwards.  So we have to make some kind of provision there to collect water.  I also intend to make the guiding pipe removable so it can be replaced more easily.