Expeditionyacht.org

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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We finally found an elegant and safe solution to create even more space on our helideck in our effort to comply with the latest CAP 437 (North Sea off-shore helicopter operation guidelines) and MCA guidelines on helipads.   Although we are not required to comply on a private yacht, and we already had an acceptable clearance, the solution shown below makes a good thing even better.

As you can see, the deck extracts almost 3 meters (10 ft.) allowing sufficient rotor tip clearance.  Our situation is shown in the drawing below.  Even when landing partly outside the forward area of the ‘H’-circle  (1/2 D) we’re still OK. Read the rest of this entry →