Boat in build pics (Squadron 78)

[BartW]

Breathtaking !

nice idea for the saloon table,
I asume the wooden plate can be taken off, then you can combine the 2
side seats underneath, with the sofa to have a wide spare bed

 

[jfm]

Do tell, you know we can't wait to see all numbers!
Very nice colours palette btw.

I don't have the numbers MapisM but will post when I do. It was 100-150rpm down on Cat C32 rated max rpm (2300 iirc) so after the boat show they will reduce the prop pitch from 54inch to about 52.5inch. Reason for the lower rpm is assumed to be (a) weight, as the tanks were full including the special 3rd fuel tank so it had 7300litres, plus the stabilisers and hydraulics and bigger genset add about 1 tonne to the boat, and (b) drag from the stab fins. Despite all that, it exceeded 30kts and the rpm drop was only 100-150, so it's a great result and after the props are repitched it should do 33kts or so, not that I will ever cruise at that kind of speed

 

[jfm]

Hi John, ive read every post here, its quite simply stunning I bet you cant wait to get your hands on the throttles and get the feel of here, shame its so cold here.

I will try and get to the show for a look, a cracking example of British workmanship its such a shame the factory has laid off staff, maybe your boat will be a good advert for orders at the show.

All the best to you.

Hi Paul
Yup, hope to show you it at the show. You will like the engine room

And I too hope they will get orders at the show. The whole point of showing my boat is to show buyers that they can do customisation. They're not expecting customers all to want what is on my boat, but it should demonstarate that they can supply what the customer asks for (withing reason!)

 

[jfm]

Jfm she does look stunning. On the close up of the stab there appears to be a cut out section on the leading edge, is this to allow access to remove the stab? When are you putting her name on?

Not a bad Xmas present to yourself ;-)

Yup that bit on the lower leading edge comes off, to reveal the nut that holds the fin onto the tapered (dia 65mm) shaft. You need a puller to get them off the shaft, obviously, and sleipner provide a machined tool for this which Fairline have adapted to fit to a standard Sykes Pickervant hydraulic puller

We haven't had time to bolt the name on so it will be done after LIBS. It's in a box, ready to go, but it's a day's work and other things have taken priority

 

[sarabande]

I can't see from the side views how near the stab fins are to the screws, nor do I know how much articulation the fins have and how fast they will move.

Is there any possibility that under way (at a variety of speeds) the stabs will deflect the flow of water over the screws in such a way as to cause some form of unexpected turbulence, or is the water flow path well outside the intake zone of the blades ?

Not sure what kind of effects I am looking for, but suspect that props like a steady and predictable flow of water to bite on to perform at their best.


(BTW, I think your thread may be responsible for increasing the Boat Show attendance by at least one !)

 

[jfm]

Looks stunning JFM, cant wait to see her at LIBS
You are obviously extremley good at your day job to be in a position to purchase such a craft but I think you could probably put a few interior designers and boat project managers / designers to shame as well!

Well to be fair to the Fairline team their "problem" is that most customers just ask for the standard stuff. Many s78 buyers talk only to the local dealer and don't come to the factory to see the build. And they want 25 shades of beige cushions or whatever, and if the boat is to be run by crew the owners don't care about a fab nav gear set up. I happen to have a longer/more difficult list of requirements, and the enthusiasm to commission custom GRP mouldings (such that my point of "impossible" is much higher than most customers'), and enough of an engineering understnading to imagine what could be done and draw it all properly to convey my ideas to engineers. But full credit goes to Fairline for doing the detailed design around a lot of my requests and implememting them, while still building the boat on time even though it included a lot of one-off stuff, eg lots of one-off furniture/cabinet work, all done to perfection. They never said "no" to me; they usually said "yes" and occasionally "we'll think about how we can do that". It makes for a very nice customer exoerience, though as I say a lot of customers are not as interested in that as I was. Maybe I have too much time on my hands? (A lot of the boat was sketched out sitting in planes train and automobiles as they say!)

 

[jfm]

I have to take my hat off to you jfm - that staircase is absolutely wonderful. The shot from the stateroom lobby area up is just fab.

Most impressed how this has turned out.

I gotta say mjf, I'm thrilled to bits with that staircase. It's highly functional in terms of allowing folk to move around the boat easily, but it's also a lovely piece of sculpture. The stainless steel work is by www.aquafabs.co.uk (great firm; I had a tour of their workshop recently by Dave Steele, the owner of the firm), Fairline made the beautiful wenge steps, and Martin at MJ made the leather handrail. It looks esp nice at night with the LED lighting, and I love the zig-zag design with the series of 90deg corners. Hope you get to see it at the show because the photos don't do it justice. I really am thrilled to bits with this particular mod [smug/cheshire cat ]

 

[jfm]

Breathtaking !

nice idea for the saloon table,
I asume the wooden plate can be taken off, then you can combine the 2
side seats underneath, with the sofa to have a wide spare bed

Hi Bart
I'm not sure about a bed conversion: the boat has 11 beds already, plus lots of space on flybridge and aft deck mattresses But come to think of it, yes you could!

The normal installation is one leather covered "box", 900 x 900, with a lifting lid. I split this into two boxes 450 x 900, and the wooden top. In normal use, the wood covers the join and makes a coffee table surface for drinks. But you can move the wooden piece away to put your feet up on the box, or you can put the wood on one of the boxes and use the other for 2 people to sit. And the wood top has handles and fiddles, so it is a tray to clear all the cups/plates/glasses to the galley on one lift. The boxes have spring balanced lids and fabric lined interiors; very nice, for storing wine/dvds etc

Check it out in Croatia some time soon

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I don't have the numbers MapisM but will post when I do. It was 100-150rpm down on Cat C32 rated max rpm (2300 iirc) so after the boat show they will reduce the prop pitch from 54inch to about 52.5inch. Reason for the lower rpm is assumed to be (a) weight, as the tanks were full including the special 3rd fuel tank so it had 7300litres, plus the stabilisers and hydraulics and bigger genset add about 1 tonne to the boat, and (b) drag from the stab fins. Despite all that, it exceeded 30kts and the rpm drop was only 100-150, so it's a great result and after the props are repitched it should do 33kts or so, not that I will ever cruise at that kind of speed

The $64k question is did you test how well the stabs work at d speed and are there any side effects at p speed?

 

[jfm]

I can't see from the side views how near the stab fins are to the screws, nor do I know how much articulation the fins have and how fast they will move.

Is there any possibility that under way (at a variety of speeds) the stabs will deflect the flow of water over the screws in such a way as to cause some form of unexpected turbulence, or is the water flow path well outside the intake zone of the blades ?

Sarabande, the stab fins are I guess 25 feet in front of the screws (pic below) and are centred less than 1m in from the chine so they're outboard of the screws. More to the point though, they are zero speed stabs which means they are big so as to work at anchor. Therefore, underway they are "too big" and so need less angular deflection to operate well. I think underway their deflection is only a few degrees typically, depending on boat speed obviously. I don't have any data but all that makes me think the interference with the screws will be smallish, and a price worth paying for the stability. So I guess it will be ok, and anyway it's a well trodden path on many boats before mine. I will be delighted to report back though, as will MYAG I hope

BTW, red lines below are fuel tanks (6 tonnes after athwartship tall tanks; 1.5t forward lower tank) , yellow is water tanks (1.5tonne). To scale the picture it is 79'11" LOA including everything like pulpit etc, 4' radar scanner, and as you'll see the stab fins are roughly same size as big hull windows

 

[jfm]

The $64k question is did you test how well the stabs work at d speed and are there any side effects at p speed?

I wasn't aboard Deleted User (blooody day job ) They tell me they loved the stabs. At zero speed they let the boat drift beam on to the sea and it rolled with no stabs then as soon as they were switched on the boat went near-stationary. Amazing they said. They could even get waves to slap hard on the hull side, on max gain. Underway they were good too but the sea wasn't big enough to test them in anger. They know they worked though because the boat (wierdly) cornered flat even at high speed. At high planing speeds the boat seemed to lose 1.5knot in that it did just over 30 with too-little rpm, so it should make 32.5 or 33, whereas the standard boat does 35kts. Mine had full tanks, and it has the extra tank too remember, so the speed loss is not all the stab fins. Most important, the boat remained the same attitiude as a normal sq78, ie it did not ride bow high as has been happening nightmarishly for Princess on the prin 72 fly with stabs (they fitted them too far forward on the prin 72 fly so they made too much forward lift at high speed)

So, all good. I'll report in more detail later of course

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I wasn't aboard Deleted User (blooody day job ) They tell me they loved the stabs. At zero speed they let the boat drift beam on to the sea and it rolled with no stabs then as soon as they were switched on the boat went near-stationary. Amazing they said. They could even get waves to slap hard on the hull side, on max gain. Underway they were good too but the sea wasn't big enough to test them in anger. They know they worked though because the boat (wierdly) cornered flat even at high speed. At high planing speeds the boat seemed to lose 1.5knot in that it did just over 30 with too-little rpm, so it should make 32.5 or 33, whereas the standard boat does 35kts. Mine had full tanks, and it has the extra tank too remember, so the speed loss is not all the stab fins. Most important, the boat remained the same attitiude as a normal sq78, ie it did not ride bow high as has been happening nightmarishly for Princess on the prin 72 fly with stabs (they fitted them too far forward on the prin 72 fly so they made too much forward lift at high speed)

So, all good. I'll report in more detail later of course

Well thats good news, especially on the trim front. How do you know about the Princess? Is it a prototype or owner's boat? All this is interesting stuff because if stabs work on planing boats, it opens up a whole new market for planing boat manufacturers ie the medium-long distance cruising market. Is Fairline planning to offer stabs as options on other models?
So what do you reckon your d speed range is? 2000nm?

 

[jfm]

Well thats good news, especially on the trim front. How do you know about the Princess? Is it a prototype or owner's boat? All this is interesting stuff because if stabs work on planing boats, it opens up a whole new market for planing boat manufacturers ie the medium-long distance cruising market. Is Fairline planning to offer stabs as options on other models?
So what do you reckon your d speed range is? 2000nm?

I dont want to spill beans here on Princess as they are 2nd hand beans anyway, but plenty of trade people have told me they have had a horror story with the fin stabs on flybridge 72. On more than one boat. They were fitted too far forward and made the bow ride high, and had to be moved aft (those last 5 words of course don't do justice to the enormity of the task).

The princess issue is specific to the set up on that boat; it is not generic. Recent years have shown much success with fin stabs on fast boats, though a lot of that is with non zero-speed stabs. Zero speeders is a newer product.. Sunseeker have several good installations for starters, and MYAG's will work great he can be confident, and everyone is very happy with the initial trials on mine, so it looks good.

Come resale, when there are 1/2 doz Y80s or Sq78s for sale at any one time, I'm confident mine/MYAG's will sell the easiest. Why wouldn't a buyer pick the one with stabs, all other things being equal? And these size boats can be slow to sell, so the "cash liquidity" benefit of such a big distinguishing feature like stabs is part of the analysis, as well as the seakeeping benefits. All imho of course

I doubt Fairline will offer stabs on boats other than s78 and its replacement, but I don't know. The next boat down, 65, is a lot more production line than the 78 so the time and one-offing to fit the stabs might not work in terms of production planning and timing. I don't know for sure. If another customer asked for fins on s78 I'd expect Fairline would say yes without hesitation. Incidentally though, demand isn't that strong; they have offered seakeeper gyros on sq78 for over a year and yet only 2 customers out of say a dozen boats have ordered them. That might be partly price: stabs = £100k

I don't know my range. I have 7000 litres if you allow some reserve, ie 1500 gallons. I'd be highly confident of say 0.8 mpg at d speed, so 1200nm range at d should be do-able. I'd also hope for 500nm range at slow p, like say 18kts, but I don't know till I have tried it. I'd like to do say Antibes-Menorca-Ibiza cruise (700nm) without buying fuel, at partly d and partly p speeds. I can easily do Antibes-S.Corsica cruise without needing to buy fuel to come home

BTW, I have full integration twixt Caterpillar and Garmin, using Maretron j1939-NMEA2000 bridges, all neatly installed at OEM stage by Fairline, so I have fuel data incl mpg on the screens. I will therefore be able to tabulate range data as soon as I get my hands on the boat after LIBS

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I don't know my range. I have 7000 litres if you allow some reserve, ie 1500 gallons. I'd be highly confident of say 0.8 mpg at d speed, so 1200nm range at d should be do-able. I'd also hope for 500nm range at slow p, like say 18kts, but I don't know till I have tried it. I'd like to do say Antibes-Menorca-Ibiza cruise (700nm) without buying fuel, at partly d and partly p speeds. I can easily do Antibes-S.Corsica cruise without needing to buy fuel to come home

I'm surprised you reckon on only 0.8mpg at d speeds but then the 78 is a big lump of boat so maybe youre right. Is that a Fairline estimate?

 

[wakeup]

JFM the boat is absolutely gorgeous. The proportions of the boat are bang on, I prefer the Sqs now they have lost the black grill/sections at the support for the flyb overhang or was this never the case of Sq78?

I've been back to look at the OB formula to apply to your latest project but it just doesn't account for style. It needs a gorgeous/style factor. At the end of the delay OB factor pretty meaningless on a boat like this and would in fact be demeaning. Committee off to rethink.......

 

[Hurricane]

I don't know my range. I have 7000 litres if you allow some reserve, ie 1500 gallons. I'd be highly confident of say 0.8 mpg at d speed, so 1200nm range at d should be do-able. I'd also hope for 500nm range at slow p, like say 18kts, but I don't know till I have tried it. I'd like to do say Antibes-Menorca-Ibiza cruise (700nm) without buying fuel, at partly d and partly p speeds. I can easily do Antibes-S.Corsica cruise without needing to buy fuel to come home

What do you recon your max displacement speed will be then?
I recon ours is about 9.5 knots.
At 10 knots we are burning about 25 litres per hour – per engine.
That’s about 1.3 gallons per mile or .75ish mpg.
So your figure of 0.8 mpg could be about right.

I always take my figures from the engine management system which is, of course, only theoretical but I have also carried out lengthy tests to prove these figures. I didn’t want to set off into open sea pushing beyond the planning range without knowing the actual fuel consumption at displacement speed.

We carry 4000 litres which gets us 300nm in good conditions at planning speed. I believe that this is the range that Princess target on all their boats. Last summer we did several runs to the Balearic Islands without refuelling. The crossing is about 100 miles and by doing some displacement and some planning speeds we can last the whole cruise without refuelling. I recon we can run for just over 700 miles at 10 knots.

Not sure about the 18 knot option.
Our engines definitely have a longer range at 25 knots than 22 knots. I’m sure that’s because at 22 knots, the second stage turbo hasn’t yet “switched in”. But is there an efficient planning speed below 20 knots – never really tested it. We either run at planning speed of 25 knots or just below 10 knots in displacement mode.

Anyway, can’t wait to see your new boat in the flesh – we are going to try and get to the show on the preview day – hope to see you then.

 

[Firefly625]

JFM, she looks superb... & unless you are employing very small people she also looks big.... !

 

[jfm]

I'm surprised you reckon on only 0.8mpg at d speeds but then the 78 is a big lump of boat so maybe youre right. Is that a Fairline estimate?

No I just made it up. Conservative guess I reckon, though displacing 55t at d speed might mean it is correct! TBH, there isn't a spec range for the boat. It is what it is, and I'll find out when I drive it and read the Garmin screens at various speeds. I asked for the extra fuel tank but my priority was to not make it so big that it spoiled the m/cabin by creating a too wide or too-high bed, so that's what determined the 1500 litre size of the fuel tank. The bed in my m/cabin is 5'3" or 160cm wide, which is bigger than official "king size", slightly, but looks very ok

Fairline have built one other sq78 with a 3rd fuel tank, now for sale here but the customer for this insisted on 2000litres and this made for an ugly (imho) wide bed that you can see in the pics at that link. The width of the bed spoiled the cabin imho, see photo 4, (and the boat in general had an interior I just couldn't get along with, but when you offer a custom product you do get some requests that are particular to the customer concerned!)

 

[mil1194]

JFM, she looks superb... & unless you are employing very small people she also looks big.... !

Nah - they're oompah loompahs!

 

[jfm]

JFM the boat is absolutely gorgeous. The proportions of the boat are bang on, I prefer the Sqs now they have lost the black grill/sections at the support for the flyb overhang or was this never the case of Sq78?

I've been back to look at the OB formula to apply to your latest project but it just doesn't account for style. It needs a gorgeous/style factor. At the end of the delay OB factor pretty meaningless on a boat like this and would in fact be demeaning. Committee off to rethink.......

Thanks Wakeup and everyone for the kind words. Needless to say I'm totally thrilled with the end result and the whole project working with Fairline and Essex Boatyards has been a lot of fun; they're all a nice bunch of guys and gals with a huge "can do" attitude. Or as the Barke brothers (owners of Essex Boatyards) put it "The answer is yes; what is your question?", which really does sum them up.

The "grille" flybridge C pillar was on the early squadrons but never the 74 or 78. One boat, the 58, had it for the early part of its life then they changed it for the 2008 facelift. As you can see the latest sq 42 + 50 have the glass taken right aft to make bigger windows, which is the way to go.

OK, let's convene an OB committee meeting in SofF in say May 2011? Tell me a weekend when you're down there and I'll stick it in the boat's diary; we'll ask EME and Gareth along for a Lumishore board meeting or something at the same time