Silver Dee, mark 2, Aquastar 74.

[silverdee]

Thank you all for kind comments re Silver Echo (if I pull my finger out soon and change name). Me , the real captain and the little Silver E crew v happy (daddy can we fit an xbox in my cabin!?).
Its good to get encouragement from fellow boat nuts when bankrupting oneself !
Super special thank you to MYAG - you guys are the BEST.
Will defo try to put some more pictures up (when time allows)and info about mini- refit one Scheduled Jan-Feb.
Now back to work to earn some fees.

 

[FirstMate II]

Congrats on the new purchase . A fine looking ship

 

[silverdee]

Squared up now with seller for missing items etc. The point was stuff that was included under contract was missing.
Looking forward to busy 3 months fitting ;zero speed stabs ; hydr bow thruster; new loos/ holding tank(s); garmin nav kit and cameras; electrics upgrades; polish up and then v busy calendar for Easter and the summer.
Will post some pics and detail as work gets underway.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Squared up now with seller for missing items etc. The point was stuff that was included under contract was missing.
Looking forward to busy 3 months fitting ;zero speed stabs ; hydr bow thruster; new loos/ holding tank(s); garmin nav kit and cameras; electrics upgrades; polish up and then v busy calendar for Easter and the summer.
Will post some pics and detail as work gets underway.

Good to hear that all resolved. You seem to thrive on relentless refitting...! Can we have some pics of the new ship? And will we see you at LIBS this year?

 

[Kawasaki]

LOL - imagine if it was Part I registered in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Thats easy for me to say, cos I lives there innit!
Hey jfm thats a Proper vessel. Nice, well done to Bro
:encouragement:

 

[silverdee]

Trying to teach myself photobucket. some photos of dec delivery of what is now Silver Echo.
http://s1056.photobucket.com/user/jamestmaxey/Palma%20to%20Antibes%20Silver%20Echo/story

 

[CharlieAlpha]

Trying to teach myself photobucket. some photos of dec delivery of what is now Silver Echo.
http://s1056.photobucket.com/user/jamestmaxey/Palma%20to%20Antibes%20Silver%20Echo/story

Thanks for Sharing J - pictures do speak a 1k words
If it helps you can put a picture in the thread by copying the IMG link in the album view and pasting in your reply as below

The traditional wake shot

 

[silverdee]

Thanks CharlieAlpha I will try to improve my I.T. literacy.

 

[jfm]

Here are a few more pics from last few months:

Below are some general pictures of Silver Echo in the yard during here refit. Bleumer yard, just east of cap d'antibes in France, our favourite yard down there

Below is new bowthruster. SD replaced an electric egg whisk about 8hp in an 8 inch tunnel with a 25hp hydraulic in a 10 inch tunnel. Proper job

Below shows relocation of fins. The old fins were too far aft. The old fin position is the repaired patch on (under) the hull, just visible to right of wooden block in picture . The new fin position is the hole with the vacuum cleaner pipe. The movement is around 1.5metres, which is where Aquastar should have put them in the first place

Here is one of the new actuators. Sleipner SPS66 model. Beautiful things.

Below are new fins installed. These are 1.05m curved, made as a one-shot FRP moulding with hydraulically stretched keyless taper shaft attachments

Below is hydraulic pack, on bulkhead aft of engine room, port side. This has the oil tank, cooler, electric pump (for at-anchor use), etc. To do this refit SD bought a serious professional hydraulic pipe crimper, loads of crimp unions, and reels of hose in several sizes. His team made all the hoses on the job and we have loads left in stock (stored at my place) so we can make hydraulics hoses on demand on the spot.

Below is a pile of old stuff. Old and pretty crummy koopnautic stabiliser actuators (largely destroyed by cutting discs to get them out) and all the Sealand vac pumps for the several vac loos, that have all been replaced by Tecmas. A new holding tank was fitted, but I have spared you a picture of the old one, that was cut up to get it out of the boat

FWIW here is transom profile. 4 big Lumishore lights were fitted, left over from my boat when Lumishore's new models were fitted last year. These 4 lights are RGB, DMX controlled, I think 15000 lumens each. When my brother was younger he got hand-me-down coats from me, the poor guy; now it's underwater lights

Below is Silver Echo underway just after the refit, before being tidied up

And finally at anchor in villefranche a couple of weeks ago with a party on board

There are other things that I don't have pics of: all new galley appliances, all new Garmin nav kit including 4 big touch screens and 2 radars, bilge alarms system, new anchor and chain one side, all new black water system (WCs, the piping, pumps and tank), etc. Overall this has been a really successful project and I'm really pleased for Silver Dee. The boat was keenly priced and even with £100-£200k of refit is great value. The (Cat) engines are perfect after a thorough service by the local specialists including fitment of one new ECU to replace a suspect one. The new stabilisation is awesome. She has 4 ensuite cabins (2 doubles and 2 twins), and a separate proper utility room current full of laundry etc but which we will convert to a crew cabin by addition of a Pullman bed. she has a large galley, American wardrobe fridge, two 19kva generators, a big saloon and great outside spaces. Right aft is a garage big enough to take a 3.2m jet rib but it will be used for water toys and dive gear, etc. She has a new tender (Avon 400dl RIB with mercury 50) from Essex boatyards, a 2 year old stock boat in good nick. She is a proper mini superyacht now, having huge range at 11 knots (9000 litres of fuel) and the ability to do 20 knots WOT, or 18 fast cruise, if you want to. :encouragement:

 

[rafiki_]

Looks great, both JM's. A really pro upgrade, and serious value add for SE. Should deliver many years of fun. Hand-me-down u/w lights? Ummmmm, must have a word with my big bro��

 

[Bouba]

Fabulous boat, don't get me wrong I love my boat and I'm not the jealous sort but my gosh that is some boat

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Proper little ship. We did see her ghosting into Villefranche a couple of weeks ago when we were at anchor there. We did wave but rightly we were ignored

Btw what was it about the behaviour of the boat that made you think that the stab fins were too far aft and why didnt the previous owner think that and have them moved?

 

[kashurst]

that is a proper proper proper boat - happy sailing.

 

[jfm]

They looked too far aft as soon as we saw them Mike, and the boat fishtailed slightly underway. With the new big fins there was it risk of yawing during zero-speed stabilization, which of course wasn't a problem with the OEM fins because they were not zero speeds. I'm not saying the move of the fins was life changing and that there would have definitely been a big problem at zero speed, but moving them in this refit was dead easy to do, so why take the chance? In contrast, moving them later would be a massive job, so SD took the safe and easy option of moving them fwd during the refit.

This picture sort of illustrates it: old position is green, new fins are blue. The new position looks and feels right. BTW, this pic is hull #1, which I just grabbed off the net because it happened to be perfectly side -on. Silver Echo is hull #2 and is identical apart from small things and a much bigger swim platform

Previous owner apparently wasn't a serious boat specifier and his permanent captain was clueless about boats. No surprise they didn't fix them. You could also ask why Aquastar built the boat that way in the first place, but I can give you a long list of things Aquastar do not do right in boat building (imho) all of which are now corrected on this boat. Suffice to say that we were absolutely not going to conclude that "it must be right if Aquastar did it".

We knew all this on the test drive and would have been changing the stabs to STAR even if they were in the right place, so no big deal.

 

[Portofino]

Nice write up thx .Rarther nice boat too .

Just one thing I picked up on with the pics --- the blocking off looks a bit precarious IMHO
My Yard had moved away from frames ,blocks , lumps of wood with wedges on the chine -- to these --- see pic
Tripods with an adjustable pad .keel is rested on traditional frames n blocks ,
The tripods prevent it tipping over .
Just wondered if the new tripods ( every boat ) was some sort of elf n safety pan SoF initiative ? New this year
Not important -tiny observation -wonder what the rational was switching to tripods ?

Tripods adjustable to fit

 

[jfm]

Let's move the conversation here please. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?479222-Silver-Echo-first-refit-new-zero-speeds-photos

Porto, I'm not aware of tripods being compulsory or of any widespread change in procedures at boatyards in SofF. In the yard where these photos are taken they use a lot of tripods on <50 footers but seem not to have them big enough for 24m boats so they use wood blocks. Either is fine in my book, so long as the whole process is done well. I don't like the angle of the hull pad in your picture at all, unless there is something else to stop the prop moving away from the keel

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

They looked too far aft as soon as we saw them Mike,

I see what you mean. Even with my inexperienced eye, I might have wondered about their position too. It begs the question whether Aquastar took Koopnautic's advice to put them there or whether it was their own decision. I suspect the latter from my limited conversations with them over the years!

Anyway as you say it was a no brainer to move their position if you are changing them anyway

 

[Portofino]

No the tripods are not linked --but I see what you mean .They are heavey and seem to have wide bases
Maybe the trad method done well in the sence of supporting the chine with wooden flats is better .
Heres another pic 65 ftr ---

Any how back to the refit -looks good there's a lot of outdoor space and shade .
How big are the engines ? Presume 11 knots is optimal D speed for sensible L/h ?

 

[BartW]

fantastic boat SD , many congrats !
at the time she was on my wishlist too, but unfortunately missing one feature: $$$

out of curiosity,
have you been able to sell SD1 in SOF ?
iirc you did quite some changes on SD1 before moving her to the med, was it planned to upgrade so soon?

good luck and much fun with SE !
you need a new photo for your avatar pic.

 

[MapisM]

wonder what the rational was switching to tripods ?

Only reason I can think of is that they allows a bit faster placement to the operators...