Sedna 30,one of many problems — ballast under floor

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Cmike

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April 2019, with the help of Oceantrax , we sailed my new Sedna 30 from Gdańsk in Poland to Norway. The boat has lifting keel & rudder so has concrete under the floor. Just north of Gothenburg we got a water leak, and due to the bilge pump not being fitted properly, I had to sit for nearly 3hrs. getting water out with a bucket. So a lot of water every where. Lots of problems season 2019, so was looking forward to 2020.
On the way round to the harbour start of season the engine moved & water leaks in from axle, I lift the floor boarda up & find that the concrete ballast has broken up — rusty looking “concrete crumble “with rusty pieces of metal in it. I have taken out about 140 kilos ,and now have to refill it. So my question is what is the best way to do this? What should the cement mixture be? Does anyone know a company I could get in touch with ?, there are not many boats with lifting keels up here so not easy find someone who knows what they are talking about.
Are there any other Sedna owners out there? it would be nice to here from you. Sedna Yachts & Edge-Water Marine just dropped me in the shit ,the list of problems is very long ,& I’m still not finished, so far this boat has cost just over £22.000. extra. So if Sedna are still making boats don’t buy one. If you need help getting your boat moved around the world get in touch with Oceantrax, Dieter and Phil who helped me were so professional— after the rudder broke off we had to sail with out stirring for 3hrs. to get to a harbour in Sweden— middle of the night, wind & waves , they were cool, calm, and collected.
regards Mike.
 
Concrete is not that heavy per unit volume, as far as I recall, and so not a particularly good, or common, ballast material for yachts. Could it have been that the concrete was merely securing in place the lumps of iron or steel ballast?

In the UK it was common to use iron or steel punchings (small pellet-like lumps) mixed into polyester resin for internal ballast, and that could potentially be a more suitable replacement. The outer surfaces of such ballast must be sealed by resin or GRP in order to prevent moisture reaching the steel, to avoid future problems. Lead pellets in resin would be even better (no risk of rusting, and lower centre of gravity), but significantly more expensive.

Note that you need to replace the same weight of ballast as the original, and that whatever materials you use the centre of gravity of the weight needs to be no higher in the boat than the original. (In practice, the top of the ballast material must be no higher.)

p.s. I should have mentioned that the concrete may have broken up due to water reaching the iron or steel inside or beneath it. If it rusts, the rust is less dense (takes up more room) than the iron or steel) and thus expands and tends to break apart whatever is around it.

In deciding what ballast to use to replace the original, refer to tables of the density (weight per unit volume) of different materials. These can be found on the internet, but I can't lay my hands on one just now.
 
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Not a good recommendation for Sedona but well done Oceantrax.
It may be that the concrete was subject to frost before being fully cured, this could cause it to crumble.
A mix of 1:3 cement to fine sand would give a strong mix, I would probably add some polypropylene fibres as used in floor screed for extra confidence.
A resin based mix would be stronger but difficult to remove if ever you needed to, and the smell would linger.
I hope you have happier voyages soon.
 
Using sulphate resisting cement may be of an advantage as less permeable and protects steel better than ordinary cement
 
Hi guys,thanks for your replies. I think I’ll go for lead punchings if I can get hold of them or lead wast. There was a lot of rust round the metal punchings, the boat build was finished later than planned,so she was put on land as it was to late so sail up to Norway ,so frost could have done some damage.
A friend of mine said I should write a report & see if the boat mags. would be interested to publish it to show buyers that buying new boats is risky. He has herd of a lot of boats with bad workmanship, I’ve talked to a lady who’s father brought a new “German sailboat” in 2015 it was to be his dream boat having just become a pensioner. It took just over 3 yrs. to win the case ,including a fight with the German authorities over who should pay the vat bill. Some of the wall panels had to be taken down & they found paper cups, food paper/plastic, saw dust ,waste wood & el. cable waste etc.
That it guys hope I haven’t bored you to much,& again many thanks for your help.
regards Mike
 
What a sorry tale.

It sounds as if you might have been subject to concrete cancer - very common in the building industry - less common in boat building (unless its a concrete boat).

I would make up resin, filled with lead mouldings, moulded to fit in the hull in the correct location. I would make them up as individual units, so make little boxes (or biggish boxes) using a release agent to allow each unit (call it a brick) to be removed. Once cured I would remove and reseal each unit in the cabin sole, Sikaflex, such that they could, if necessary be removed.

Jonathan
 
Hi Jonathan, thanks for your reply, I’m now sure this problem was caused by what happened on way up to Norway. Water was running into boat from the steering shaft, which goes up from top of rudder to steering wheel,this shaft is telescopic & no rubber seals were fitted, so for nearly 3hrs.we had around 20mm of water covering floor in the cabin with small waves going in all directions.Water also run under the engine,but the engine room floor is not sealed off so it ran over the 30mm “wall” and under the floors of cabin & bathroom. When we got home I got 47 litres of dirty water out with use a little bump & a towel. Dirty water— dog ends, paper cups etc.
There are 5 small areas that the ballast lies in ,hard to get it out but decided not to use hammer and chisel. Found a pic. that Edge-Water Marine sent me in October 2018, when I zoomed in I could see that there was no ballast in place. These areas are at the most 40cm wide & 3 to 10cm in depth, lucky I stopped when I did. So got some thinking to do.
Hi Rival,thanks for your reply, 8hrs after we left Gdańsk I got a mail from my contact/ manager/owner at Edge-Water saying they had gone bust, both Oceantrax & I tried to phone him but no luck.So I phoned Sedna they thought I was joking, phoned back after about 30mins really pissed off, E-W still owed them over 60% of the cost of building my boat. All cables & wiring were under dimensioned, diesel heaters exhaust was not fitted properly & layed into wall, wall was black but luckily didn’t catch fire. The list just goes on & on, in the end communicating with Sedna was hard,& they just stopped replying to my emails.They have either gone bust or maybe just closed down for awhile hopping I’d give up. Then along came C19 & the world is changing. I’ve read a lot of the EU documents and basically they are not there to protect customers but to give the other side an easy way out. Over here we call cases like this—- food for lawyers .
Maybe I should write a book, kept a log & lots of pics. Or Netflix could make short series, help me get my money back ?
That’s it guys thanks for your interest & help regards Mike.
 
I am afraid you are not alone in having issues with rubbish Polish boats and dodgy dealers as you can see from the thread forums.ybw.com/index.php?threads/a-moral-dilemma.323490/

The owner never really got any satisfaction despite doing all the "right" things, although from what I can remember he had the boat repaired and continued to use it. The EU "protection" Directives are fine in theory, but like most things that come from Brussels rely on individual states to implement them within their own legal systems. This is sort of OK if all the parties are in the same legal jurisdiction but almost impossible if they are not. The big weakness is that the Directive places the responsibility on the entity with whom the buyer had the contract, in this (and your) case the dealer. This is the weakest link as often dealers are what we call in English "men of straw" and dodgy builders like the one who built your boat have no obligation to the buyer other than good will.

With major builders and well established dealers this sort of issue rarely arises, although it can be frustrating getting action when the fault is clearly with the builder.

I am astonished the builder used concrete for ballast rather than lead or iron and I hope you will be able to dig it out and reballast with lead or steel pellets set in resin. Just make sure you get the distribution and weight right as it is obviously going to take up less space because of the higher density.
 
Tranona said:
I am afraid you are not alone in having issues with rubbish Polish boats and dodgy dealers as you can see from the thread forums.ybw.com/index.php?threads/a-moral-dilemma.323490/

The owner never really got any satisfaction despite doing all the "right" things, although from what I can remember he had the boat repaired and continued to use it. The EU "protection" Directives are fine in theory, but like most things that come from Brussels rely on individual states to implement them within their own legal systems. This is sort of OK if all the parties are in the same legal jurisdiction but almost impossible if they are not. The big weakness is that the Directive places the responsibility on the entity with whom the buyer had the contract, in this (and your) case the dealer. This is the weakest link as often dealers are what we call in English "men of straw" and dodgy builders like the one who built your boat have no obligation to the buyer other than good will.

With major builders and well established dealers this sort of issue rarely arises, although it can be frustrating getting action when the fault is clearly with the builder.

I am astonished the builder used concrete for ballast rather than lead or iron and I hope you will be able to dig it out and reballast with lead or steel pellets set in resin. Just make sure you get the distribution and weight right as it is obviously going to take up less space because of the higher density.
Click to expand...
I remember reading a detailed web site by the Hazar 30 purchaser with lots of photographs of the damage and repair, but this was removed several years ago. It was very badly built with the foam core blocks being hardly bonded to the external layup before the internal layup. The repair involved cutting the topsides away and relaminating them. From memory it cost the owner about £15,000 and he never got a penny from the agent or builder. Also his insurance did no cover poor construction.
 
I vaguely recall concrete being used as ballast in commercial vessels - but not leisure vessels.

On ballast - I cannot believe concrete bonds well to gelcoat, but I stand to be corrected. I believe that gel coat does not dissolve in hydrochloric nor sulphuric acid, but concrete will dissolve in these acids. A weak acidic solution allow to soak into the concrete, preferably applied at the concrete gel coat interface might free up the ballast and allow it to be lifted out.

I do note the comment that the ballast is not easily accessible - but it must be removed - so you need to find a way. If its left in situ the iron in it will continue to corrode, the concrete will continue to fracture and it will be a continuing mess. Concrete cancer (simply google it for more detail) is pretty awful and the only cure is remove the steel and commonly all the affected concrete. Once the concrete is saturated with salt water it is impossible to stop the corrosion - it will always be damp and steel will continue to corrode. Concrete cancer with salt in the mix is as bad as it gets - sorry.

Maybe others here can comment. You would need lots of forced ventilation, the fumes will be awful, and really good protective clothing, gloves, face mask, goggles.

Jonathan
 
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