How is Match, after 4 months JFM?

[taz]

This is the most bizarre Fred Rift or way of keeping a thread going I've ever seen............luv it

5 pages dedicated(almost) to prawns..................rifiki will think we're being shellfish people

 

[Seahope]

But just keeping the seafood Fred drift,
This was dinner on Saturday.... Finest Pembrokeshire delicacies!
At least the lobster and crab were!, not sure about the crevettes.
Cant get any fresher

I think I can trump that lobster - this is one I ate (a lot) earlier in Boston

Sorry, an email I received today has put me in a very good mood

 

[jfm]

Just checked back in on this thread. Fantastic drift - I feel bad now posting about some boat, rather than shellfish. I feel like I'm the one doing the drifting

Seahope, I've seen your email. Great news. I have PMed you.

Rafiki, i don't know precisely what you mean by vertical movement on the stab shafts - do you mean axial? Anyway, so far they are bone dry, no seal problems. I don't expect any: so long as the play in the bearings is less than the range of movement the seals can handle, it should be ok

I am absolutely loving the stabilisers. Sleipner have been on board for a few days this week doing upgrades and tweaks, new software, and they are better than ever. We have been taking any big waves or swells we can find beam on and the stabs just transform the boat

Those on here who have been on Match might recall the at-anchor function works well but the hydraulic pump is noisy. Well, Sleipner found a new pump, made by Rexroth, and couriered one over from Norway and installed it last week, and it is near silent even when you're standing next to it. So with the engine room door shut the stabs are now silent. This is a fantastic development, because the noise was spoiling the stabs

Another big change happened on Sleipner's tests earlier this week. When a V hull boat moves along fast, the flow of the water is along the boat but also a bit outwards from keel to chine. This causes stabiliser drag because manufacturers build stabs around a fixed centre position, fore-aft on the boat, which is not quite parallel with the water flow. Sleipner, in contrast, have a floating centre. You run the boat, let the stabilisers trail free, then set that as the centre. This results in Sleipner stabilsers appearing to have "toe in" when you see the boat lifted. Now, Fairline and Sleipner set my floating centre at 28-30kts on sea trials but I told Sleipner I cruise at 20. So we ran the boat at 20 knots and it was using 19 litres/mile with the original setting, then Sleipner re-set the centre at 20 knots not 30, and instantly the fuel burn dropped to 17 litres/mile. That is hugely significant, obviously. It will save me €2000 on my trip to Balerics next month, for starters. This ability to set your own centre imho represents a major reason to have Sleipner stabs not others, at least on a fast boat. And you can reset the centre on the go, if say you have set them at 20kts but want to do a long run at 28 or 10knots (at least I can, becuase Sleipner have shown me the hidden menus)

Rafiki you asked about things going well. The stabs, obviously. But also that internal staircase is a huge success. The ability to get food and plates to/from the galley is a major benefit. I really struggle to see how customers (and stewardesses) can be happy without this staircase. I can say absolutely for sure now that I love the Garmin gear and am very happy to have it rahter than Raymarine

A few things need fettling but they're small. Essex Boatyards are on the boat today till Thursday doing all my little snags in one big blitz. Icemaker was misbehaving so they brought a new one (no messing about there...). They will also change a few other bought-in components that aren't working: an engine room fan, a doorlock, a bit of damaged carpet, a water tank inspection hatch whose seal weeps, an anchor foot switch. You know the sort of boring snags you get; no big deal. Alas DHL lost some of Essex's parts and tools so there is a job tracking them, but it will all get done this week. As ever, the back up from Essex Boatyards is second to none

SteveD, to answer your question, the weight difference between full/empty in fuel is 7 tonnes, plus a tonne of water. It's 53 tonnes light, 61 tonnes full. I honestly can't feel any difference but of course on a boat like this you drive in straight lines and don't throw it into turns much. And the fuel is midships so doesn't affect trim much. The weight does affect fuel consumption though: it's an extra litre per mile at 20knots when full cmpared with when nearly empty, for sure (I have electronic fuel monitoring so can see fuel burn rate and litres per mile on the electronics). I have trim tabs but hardly ever use them - I keep them up mostly. The stabilisers are on all the time

The boat was lifted yesterday (Monday) and pics/video are below. The lift was to fix a busted trim tab, clean crud off props (4 months worth), jet wash the hull and paint the stabs a different colour (light grey) ready for Sleipner to make a film, and a few other jobs. Pics below. The vid is the lift out yesterday (sorry it's a bit boring - for boat geeks to watch in private!).

 

[newWave]

Smashingly informative as ever.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

 

[rafiki_]

John,

Many thanks for the update, and great to hear of such good customer service.

Pics are great, will look at the vid when I have better connectivity.

With regard to the stabs sealing, I am assuming that the stabs extend through the hull on shafts, and while most of the force will be axial, I am assuming that ther will be some cantilever bending, and the stab blades do their stuff................or have I misunderstood their operation?

It struck me as brave that you have a bath in your master suite. While Match is a large vessel, she must be moved by swell and wake from other large craft, and while watching your rubber duck bobble around in the bath, do you get any spillage?

Good also to hear that your other major mods have worked out well too.

I really appreciate your updates.

 

[rafiki_]

Nice video John, that is a serious bit of MHE. Not sure about the blocks though, but I guess it all worked OK.

The superstructure still looks gleaming. How often do you clean her?

 

[jfm]

John,

Many thanks for the update, and great to hear of such good customer service.

Pics are great, will look at the vid when I have better connectivity.

With regard to the stabs sealing, I am assuming that the stabs extend through the hull on shafts, and while most of the force will be axial, I am assuming that ther will be some cantilever bending, and the stab blades do their stuff................or have I misunderstood their operation?

It struck me as brave that you have a bath in your master suite. While Match is a large vessel, she must be moved by swell and wake from other large craft, and while watching your rubber duck bobble around in the bath, do you get any spillage?

Good also to hear that your other major mods have worked out well too.

I really appreciate your updates.

You are right that there are cantilever bending forces on the shafts. But they are 65 dia ht stainless steel, and of course the maximum resulting movement occurs at the shat tip, not at the bearings which is where the seals are. The seals seem fine

Afaik seals are not a big prob. Sunseeker had a load of boats with weeping leaks a few years ago due to poor sealant between the clamp plates and the hulls, but not due to shaft seals

The bath is fine! It's used in port or calm anchorages. The bath water is a few inches from the rim so it would take a moderately lumpy anchrage to spill water. No probs so far

The sale of fairline to private equity firm Better Capital (jon moulton's firm) was announced this morning, by the way

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Those on here who have been on Match might recall the at-anchor function works well but the hydraulic pump is noisy. Well, Sleipner found a new pump, made by Rexroth, and couriered one over from Norway and installed it last week, and it is near silent even when you're standing next to it. So with the engine room door shut the stabs are now silent. This is a fantastic development, because the noise was spoiling the stabs

Another big change happened on Sleipner's tests earlier this week. When a V hull boat moves along fast, the flow of the water is along the boat but also a bit outwards from keel to chine. This causes stabiliser drag because manufacturers build stabs around a fixed centre position, fore-aft on the boat, which is not quite parallel with the water flow. Sleipner, in contrast, have a floating centre. You run the boat, let the stabilisers trail free, then set that as the centre. This results in Sleipner stabilsers appearing to have "toe in" when you see the boat lifted. Now, Fairline and Sleipner set my floating centre at 28-30kts on sea trials but I told Sleipner I cruise at 20. So we ran the boat at 20 knots and it was using 19 litres/mile with the original setting, then Sleipner re-set the centre at 20 knots not 30, and instantly the fuel burn dropped to 17 litres/mile. That is hugely significant, obviously. It will save me €2000 on my trip to Balerics next month, for starters. This ability to set your own centre imho represents a major reason to have Sleipner stabs not others, at least on a fast boat. And you can reset the centre on the go, if say you have set them at 20kts but want to do a long run at 28 or 10knots (at least I can, becuase Sleipner have shown me the hidden menus

Hi jfm

All sounds great - good news on the replacement power pack, and this on-the-fly adjustment of the floating centre sounds very interesting. Any progress on the second station for the stab controller?

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

'scuse me if I'm not envious of those cheeseburgers...

Given that I kicked off the massive thread drift with my cheeseburger comment, I feel duty bound to point out that these weren't just any old cheeseburgers - if you consider a quarterpounder with cheese as say a Ford Focus cheeseburger, then for me the Lavezzi cheeseburger was something more akin to a DB9... and we got seconds!

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[rafiki_]

Given that I kicked off the massive thread drift with my cheeseburger comment, I feel duty bound to point out that these weren't just any old cheeseburgers - if you consider a quarterpounder with cheese as say a Ford Focus cheeseburger, then for me the Lavezzi cheeseburger was something more akin to a DB9... and we got seconds!

Cheers
Jimmy

DB9's are now very long in the tooth. Sounds more like a carpet burger!

 

[rafiki_]

You are right that there are cantilever bending forces on the shafts. But they are 65 dia ht stainless steel, and of course the maximum resulting movement occurs at the shat tip, not at the bearings which is where the seals are. The seals seem fine

Afaik seals are not a big prob. Sunseeker had a load of boats with weeping leaks a few years ago due to poor sealant between the clamp plates and the hulls, but not due to shaft seals

The bath is fine! It's used in port or calm anchorages. The bath water is a few inches from the rim so it would take a moderately lumpy anchrage to spill water. No probs so far

The sale of fairline to private equity firm Better Capital (jon moulton's firm) was announced this morning, by the way

Yes, I have been watching the feed on the F/line takeover with interest. Should be good news. Only potential downside is Moulton's rep for asset stripping. With a business like Fairline, much of the serious added value is in the workforce, and clients. I hope Mr Moulton recognises this.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

DB9's are now very long in the tooth. Sounds more like a carpet burger!

Sorry - a convoy of flashy cars went passed me this morning, incl a DB9 (and a couple of R8's, a couple of Gallardo's and a 599 I think).

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[rafiki_]

Sorry - a convoy of flashy cars went passed me this morning, incl a DB9 (and a couple of R8's, a couple of Gallardo's and a 599 I think).

Cheers
Jimmy

Now, there are some tasty morsels within that menu!!

 

[David of Essex]

Quote (I am absolutely loving the stabilizers. Sleipner have been on board for a few days this week doing upgrades and tweaks, new software, and they are better than ever. We have been taking any big waves or swells we can find beam on and the stabs just transform the boat)

You seem to have a had a first class service and support from EBY and Sleiper. Are all the upgrades and software from Sleipner free of charge?
Watching Match being lowered onto the wooden chocks made me flinch.
Were they just to just to help support, whilst still being held in the slings?
Time for some more prawns.
David

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Thanks for the update, jfm. In my industry, Rexroth hydraulic pumps and motors are considered the best in the business so you've probably gained something with regards to reliability as well as noise reduction. Agree 100% on internal flybridge stairways but as we discussed before, the manufacturers say that their buyers dont demand them which is a complete mystery to me. I see that Princess and Ferretti, as well as Fairline, are not fitting them as standard even on their larger models now. Having had internal steps on my last two boats, I wouldn't buy another f/b boat without them now

 

[Trundlebug]

That scaling on the props looks all too familiar. Nice to know even superyachts have the same problems!

As a matter of interest, how did they clean up the props and what did they finish them or protect them with?
Wire brushing followed by polishing? Always useful to know how the professionals do it.

Thanks as ever for sharing, great to hear it's going so well. Getting better all the time by the sound of it.

 

[benjenbav]

jfm, I don't think you were being at all shellfish in returning to the subject of Match although I must admit I was quite enjoying the prawn.

I'm amazed at the amount of barnacly growth on the props in three months. Is that normal for W med? I bet getting rid of that will shave another litre/mile off your fuel burn.

 

[taz]

I'm amazed at the amount of barnacly growth on the props in three months. Is that normal for W med? I bet getting rid of that will shave another litre/mile off your fuel burn.

Makes you shudder to think what they're like on these boats moored up for years on end.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I'm amazed at the amount of barnacly growth on the props in three months. Is that normal for W med? I bet getting rid of that will shave another litre/mile off your fuel burn.

Entirely normal and Majorca is even worse although I think it may depend on exactly where you moor and how much wildlife is actually in the water. When I moored my Ferretti 46 in Palma, I could easily lose 6 knots boat speed in 2-3 months due to sterngear fouling alone, although hull fouling was never an issue. Of course thats equivalent to a 20-25% increase in fuel consumption. I used to employ a diver 3 or 4 times a season to clean my sterngear. I once left the sterngear uncleaned for about 4 months over summer and the top speed of the boat was down from 27kts to 16kts. In fact it struggled to even get on the plane.
Interestingly, sterngear fouling is much less of a problem in Croatia and I left my boat untouched all last summer and through the winter and only lost 2-3kts. I dont know exactly why that is. The water temp is only a couple of degrees cooler but its a lot clearer than Majorca so maybe its pollution that encourages the barnacle critters to grow

 

[z1ppy]

took our rib up from hamble to southampton last night to be lifted for a clean. usually we are flat out 45 kts. last night, running with the tide i could get 33Kts!

That was after 4 months in the water!!