Engineers that never met their fathers...

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maby

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... in this case, French ones....

We've just spent a literally horrible day - and it looks likely that tomorrow will be little better! This morning we lifted a sole plate and found water in the bilges. After a struggle, we tracked it down to a leaking coupling in the hour water supply to the gallery. Access is via an inspection cover about 6 inches by 4 and the coupling is several inches along a tunnel. Did they use jubilee clips? Of course not! The plastic pipes are held on by crimp fit clips that can only be removed by brute force - which is difficult to exert several inches along a tunnel through a small access port.

It took me four hours to get the leaking clip off and replace it with a jubilee clip - only to discover that, in the process, I had disrupted another one - which is now dripping! On what planet did the Beneteau designer study?

Rant over - till tomorrow!
 
The school of low production costs (that does not address the cost of maintainability).

Johnjo will design a better one for you.
 
maby said:
... in this case, French ones....

We've just spent a literally horrible day - and it looks likely that tomorrow will be little better! This morning we lifted a sole plate and found water in the bilges. After a struggle, we tracked it down to a leaking coupling in the hour water supply to the gallery. Access is via an inspection cover about 6 inches by 4 and the coupling is several inches along a tunnel. Did they use jubilee clips? Of course not! The plastic pipes are held on by crimp fit clips that can only be removed by brute force - which is difficult to exert several inches along a tunnel through a small access port.

It took me four hours to get the leaking clip off and replace it with a jubilee clip - only to discover that, in the process, I had disrupted another one - which is now dripping! On what planet did the Beneteau designer study?

Rant over - till tomorrow!
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Doh! What a complete pain. You have my complete sympathy. Not going to make it better, but it shows someone cares.

It was probably installed when the boat was a bare hull and you could get fancy tools in there with ease. Happens all the time, looking at motor cars they are no better. Try changing a headlamp on a Ford Focus!

Chin up, after all they were French so we can continue to feel superior.
 
Sounds like the accountants got in the way. What type of boat is it and when was it built?

I own a well built French boat, OK it is 30 years old and am planning on buying another French boat when the Lotto numbers come in,
 
Dougal Tolan said:
Is it possible to undo another, more accessible, fitting further along the run so that the problem one can be moved to the hatch for repair.
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That was my thought. I'm not sure how it is cheaper to have the coupling several inches from the inspection hatch. Just sounds like lazy design and that they couldn't give a monkey's because they install the pipework before dropping the second moulding on top.
 
Dougal Tolan said:
Is it possible to undo another, more accessible, fitting further along the run so that the problem one can be moved to the hatch for repair.
Click to expand...

Nope - these are the only couplings in the pipe. Sometime in the summer we will replace the entire run, shortening the forward section to bring the coupling closer to the port. Over 90% of the problem is the use of these crimp on clips - they require the application of considerable force to remove them and this took me nearly three hours in the very confined space. Once it was off, it was relatively easy to reassemble with a jubilee clip.

The boat is a Beneteau Sense 43 about five years old.
 
Any chance of cutting the clips off with a Dremel type tool? I picked up a look alike kit from the local B&Q and found it very good for those sort of jobs. €20 with loads of bits.
 
During ownership of a previous "UK" built boat purchased a Dremel Drill with selection of the miniscule diamond side cut discs which ensured the quick and simple "release" of assorted clamps and clips of all types,secreted away in nooks and crannies,
Also became an expert on providing inspection hatches in bits of the boat superstructure.
 
Pat on the back in sympathy; have just taken out my gearbox and spent a day removing the shaft coupling...
 
Sandy said:
Sounds like the accountants got in the way. What type of boat is it and when was it built?

I own a well built French boat, OK it is 30 years old and am planning on buying another French boat when the Lotto numbers come in,
Click to expand...

You might be interested in the comment received yesterday from a German friend who has just taken delivery of a new big Beneteau :

********** arrived at the end of November in Singapore on board of a container ship. You may recall, it is an Oceanis 60, very much built to our specifications. She is big, no doubt. 22 tons light displacement. Commissioning is almost finished, we have been over to Indonesia already, but only once. A few things are still missing – a sign of a rather inefficient industry and the country of origin. I thought that most companies have improved in the area of logistics over the last years (or decades). This does apparently not apply to Beneteau. Having bought our first boat from them 15 years ago we cannot see much progress. Positive changes though in terms of some finesse in design and electrics/electronics.
 
Just had this with Daughter's (French) car. A leaking radiator was connected to the bottom pipe by some sort of bayonet / clicky plastic fitting with an 'o' ring. The pipe emerged from the steelwork of the wheel arch by all of 50mm, and necessitated stripping the bumper, then the wheel arch, cutting out the pipe, and re-joining with a sleeve and jubilee clips.

Probably saved the accountants b - all, wasted half my day.
 
They are not any better with their car maintenance designs, trust me.... and not just the French! No thought put into how anything will be repaired, replaced or maintained.
 
One of the first things that I learned from old fitters when I first started as an apprentice at the dockyard was "The draughtsman's pencil can fit everywhere". This was when we found a skin fitting between an oil tank and the shipside, a space of not more than 20cms or so.
 
stevie69p said:
They are not any better with their car maintenance designs, trust me.... and not just the French! No thought put into how anything will be repaired, replaced or maintained.
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The most maintainable car I have ever owned was my 2CV on which doing anything, with the sole exception of setting the points gap, was astonishingly easy. Changing all four shock absorbers took me 20 minutes, of which 10 minutes were spend working out how to do the first one.
 
The focus on production boats is production and thereby the cost of production.

All design is a compromise BUT if you included maintability alongside the production priority in design then the cost of production would increase (reduced profit).

Automobiles are similar in this respect with the focus on production x 10 to the power of everything. Very few people diy on cars anymore and the need to have a car suspended in the air with wheels and wings off to get at bolt or a sensor is no issue for a garage and the customer just has to shell out £££££ - again.
 
NormanB said:
Very few people diy on cars anymore and the need to have a car suspended in the air with wheels and wings off to get at bolt or a sensor is no issue for a garage and the customer just has
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That is true but I think that people who buy 'budget-priced' production boats are unlikely to be the ones who are willing "to shell out £££££ - again."
 
stevie69p said:
They are not any better with their car maintenance designs, trust me.... and not just the French! No thought put into how anything will be repaired, replaced or maintained.
Click to expand...


Quite, when I suggested that car design should pay more heed to the needs of the end user, on a nearby forum, there was much indignation from the forum "industry" expert.
He thought I was very slack because I was not inclined to put the car on ramps, remove the engine pan and find three special tools to drain the oil and change the filter :



"......................Ok... so basically, you're whining because you can't be arsed to jack your car up and get a Torx or Ribe driver to undo the undertray fasteners? If that's the level of "complexity" you're crying about, I kind-of get the feeling that you're not really serious about maintaining your own car! The undertray was probably......................... "



God help us.
 
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doug748 said:
Quite, when I suggested that car design should pay more heed to the needs of the end user, on a nearby forum, there was much indignation from the forum "industry" expert. He thought it was very slack because I was not inclined to put the car on ramps, remove the engine pan and find three special tools to drain the oil and change the filter:

"......................Ok... so basically, you're whining because you can't be arsed to jack your car up and get a Torx or Ribe driver to undo the undertray fasteners? If that's the level of "complexity" you're crying about, I kind-of get the feeling that you're not really serious about maintaining your own car! The undertray was probably.........................

God help us.
Click to expand...

But God does not help.
It is not merely a case of jacking your car up, it is then putting it on axle stands for safety and this requires that you have a suitable drive - for example the slope on my drive is too steep. However I do all my own servicing and can get round this - just saying it is not always as 'easy' to jack up your car as you imply.
 
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