Versilcraft Mystere 42 Qs

[vas]

Versilcraft Mystere 42

I thought I better not resurrect a 2008 thread once again, so a new post for me.
Following the Ferretti (overpriced and with a failed engine) and the two Italcrafts (that I'm waiting for the owners to come back with docs and calculated unpaid tax + overdue charges...) I've come across one (or two) of the above crafts.

The one I'll be looking this evening. is being out of the water for 5-6 years, stripped hull and two coats of epoxy put on. Owner claims that there is no decay and everything is sound. Two cat engines are out and sold (were put new 10yrs ago, dunno what happened to original lumps)
What I didn't like is that 15yrs ago the teak decks were redone with new teak secured ON TOP of the original decks that were failing (this cannot be right, can it?)

So overall Qs

Mystere is a timber hull, is it:
type 1 (solid wood, I doubt!)
type 2 (wood veneer, I hope!) or
type 3 (plywood - which iirc from another thread I sould avoid at all costs?)

What engines were originally there? Should I assume it was detroits or IFO IVECOs, and can I easily obtain and fit two of them in there?

And most importantly, is it worth the trouble or not? (starting price for the hull as is is 10K euro, but there may be another tenner in overdue govermental taxes and charges...) I know this last question is rhetorical, but valid nevertheless...

any info welcomed as always especially from PYB and Alf for the first two Qs

cheers

V

 

[Divemaster1]

Cannot recall build material of these, but should be good quality stuff...

Engines, predominantly Detroit's in-line 6/71's, between 250 and 450 Hp ... ish .. (same base engines). Could also be V6/71's, but doubt that there will be any V8's installed.

Availability . yes ... http://www.goldcoastpower.com/product.cfm?startRow=91&this_page=4&this_page2=4&product_type=1

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

To my knowledge the Versilcraft, as many Italian motor yachts of prestigious yards of the period (San Lorenzo, Cantieri di Pisa, some of the Italcrafts etc) where built with the called Lamellare technique, that is peaces of solid wood glued togather.
But I am not so sure of this, so if you wanna know I may be can give you a number of a surveyor who has quite a knowledge of these old ladies.
PM and I will send you his number.

 

[vas]

falling in love!

craft is so nice, lines are perfect, inside and out, interior roomy, galley excellent, helm position perfect both size wise and ergonomically (10X better than the spatious setup of the Italcraft AERMAR I really liked), two nice large and decent height rooms, well organised engine room, large flybridge with good access through a beautifully designed aluminium staircase. Being an architect, I can really appreciate the design and thought put into her and tbh I've difficulties comparing her to any 90ies-00ies craft that cost 10 times as much.

Pitty about her condition though. Being on the dry for 5-6 years, all below the waterline sanded to bare material covered with two coats of clear epoxy (allegedly). The rest of the exterior is cracked paint everywhere you look at. Every single bolt or nail has its filler popped out, so needs hours and hours to no end of sanding down to bare ply before sealing, filling and painting.
Interior is in almost A1 condition (amazingly) with no stains on any linings or roofing material, all bits of furniture working properly, rooms nice, clean and tidy.
Bilges are clean no signs of soft wood anywhere. Engine room the same. Electrics seem ok, and like all the other 70ies Italian craft, they have a pressurised immersive tank for hot water (operating at 220V!) Guess will have to repipe things and install a proper hot water tank. No waste tank either...

Teak deck aft and all the sides going to the bow are 4mm teak glued to the old teak deck. Sikaflex has been used to chalk them in. At 4-5 places it seems that this new (15yr old) deck has lifted off the original and it's soft to the point it reaches the level of the old one, so seems that the old one is still solid...

Seems that the hull is made out of ply without being able to figure out how it cross covers to seal the whole thing. I'll upload a few pics that show the keel in the front and you can clearly see something like 20mm ply (maybe more) judging from a few holes I could see through the hull (exhaust for example) hull thickness is at about 20-22millimetre (wasn't carrying a tape measure but should be around that)

Overall a decent size restoration project. Maybe a bit too much for what I'm ready for at this time, but probably worth it. Unfortunately had the wife with me and she's thoroughly freaked out with fresh memories of the two housing restoration/rebuilding projects with lots of personal work that kept me busy for at least 5 years not so long ago (1999-2005) and she doesn't want to go through that again, no wonder...

Price is 10K, needs sorting out paperwork that will probably set me back another 6-8K and need to get two engines and fit them in...

So definitely need someone to talk me out of this

cheers

V.

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

Yes by your description that is lamellare technique, wood sheets glued togather to form a solid structure.

Being with no engines this will be costly project IMO, and seeing the condition outside you also need to spend money there.
Before going into deeper pockets make a check how much all this costs, with all being involved even 5k may be too much.

The engines is the delicate part, as these boats in my opinion will suffer lower weight modern engines. Locally once a Posillipo 47 Todago they changed from twin GM 435hp to twin Cats 6 cylinder 425hp. The boat became light in the water, with the chines when half loaded of fuel sitting on top of it, and the captain also told me it lost a lot of its good seakeeping. With the GM's I remember she was a queen in head seas with everyone moving behind her when it was Force 5 or above. And say this from a personal experience in 1989, where two dozen boats (some say to its size) where just ploughing behind her because of the nasty Gregale, and she was opening it with grace.

Here is some sister and similar boats:
http://www.mondialbroker.it/detail.taf?B=143009&K=BPS
http://www.mondialbroker.it/detail.taf?B=167854&K=BPS this is a Mirage also very nice

Some similar deals
San Lorenzo
http://www.mondialbroker.it/boat.taf?B=282367&K=SRC
13.80 model
http://www.mondialbroker.it/search.taf?w=sanlorenzo 13


And another queen Pisa 14 Kitalpha
http://www.mondialbroker.it/boat.taf?B=199858&K=SRC

Ok now you are more confused then ever, but I am showing you this so you can have an indication of what your spending can be in relation to the real boats value. As these are all similar examples.

 

[vas]

YPB, thanks for all the pointers and info, still haven't had the time to call the surveyor you recommended, will do tomorrow if I have time, else I'll email him with the photos posted here as well.
Especially important was the case you mention with regards to newer lighter engines. And to think that I was planning on shaving off some weight... Actually this would work fine if I could get hold (cheaply) two old heavy lumps that Divemaster suggested and save some money as well...

However, having thought about it for a few days now and talked to a couple of experienced friends, I'm not sure about many things...

First of all the size, seen it advertised as 42, 43 and the UK built GRP as 14m something (45...). OK, not big deal, but legislativewise here, the shorter the better (i.e. as in lower taxation, berths are free where I am )

Also not sure about the construction method:

that's the side view of the hull and

is a detail around the exhaust area (usually covered, now removed the cover to check the overall condition of the hull.

keel and

detail that looks like marine ply to me...

finally check this interior of the hull at the engineroom, looks like there were I layer of timber (planks I'd call them in building eng terms) and the rest layered on top?

Other than that, bilge looks okayish

Teak decks need redoing (all of them, not a trivial or cheap job...)

and
typical exterior condition on all wooden surfaces that mean a lot of work to sand down, clear and primer/repaint.

Now, I finally am not at all sure that the finish obtained after all the effort that will have to be put to it will be worth it. OK, the external marine ply of the superstructure if sanded carefully should provide some decent finish.
However, the rough sanding of the hull, with some material removed here and there and around airducts, hull holes, windows etc will be a nightmare to filler decently and get straight and not wavy lines for the hull, the chines et al. Is it worth the effort when all the grp crafts will be straight as it can ever be without any effort???
I confess I'm a bit of a perfectionist and wavy hull surfaces will annoy me everytime I see it...

We shall see, but doesn't look too promising atm. Interesting to see what the two Italcrafts will cost overall to buy and put together properly.

cheers

V.

 

[MystereMarcus]

Hi Virtuvas,
Thanks for posting the photos. It does seem a lot of work but one advantage of having to sand a 70's boat is that there are very few curved areas Even in the current condition I think the boat looks fantastic. Something I found strange though is that it seems to have a shallow 3/4 length keel, do you (or anybody else), know if this was normal. I have a fibreglass Mystere that doesn't have a keel (photos here http://jclmysterecamerasheik.shutterfly.com/), a versilcraft was taken as the plug so I assumed the hulls should be identical.
Anyway good luck and let us know your decision.

 

[vas]

Hi Virtuvas,
Thanks for posting the photos. It does seem a lot of work but one advantage of having to sand a 70's boat is that there are very few curved areas Even in the current condition I think the boat looks fantastic. Something I found strange though is that it seems to have a shallow 3/4 length keel, do you (or anybody else), know if this was normal. I have a fibreglass Mystere that doesn't have a keel (photos here http://jclmysterecamerasheik.shutterfly.com/), a versilcraft was taken as the plug so I assumed the hulls should be identical.
Anyway good luck and let us know your decision.

MM,
you SHOULDN'T have posted this link! Your boat is really beautiful and you are getting me tempted again as I was trying to forget and persuade myself that it's not right... If I finally get the wooden one here, I'd use your photos (and expect lots of Qs) as a template and target to reach! It's amazing that they are identical in almost every respect, down to fb detailing, handles, interior, you name it.

Mind, you don't have the exhausts protrussions on the fb versions with the pipes coming above waterline at the back. I wonder why they changed that as it seems a nice detail and in theory adding a wee bit in stability? PYB what do you think?
I also feel there is a more bulging transom on the wooden one, not got the right angle photo to prove though (wideangle shots pronounce the effect)

Yes, indeed there is a keel, just looking through the 150 odd photos I took to find the right ones:

towards bow

the ending of it at 3/4 level to the axles coming through the hull

and from the inside if it makes any sense (not sure)

I'd hazzard a guess that they couldn't be bothered to sort out a keel in the mould, it must be much easier to do that in timber

cheers

Vassilis

 

[MystereMarcus]

Vassilis

Thanks for the kind words. If you do get the Mystere I'd be glad to help in any way possible (questions, photo's, measuring bits etc). I am intrigued about the keel though. I've tried to see if there is one in the link posted by PYB but I can't make it out.
The reason the exhausts are different on mine is that they changed the location of the engines. Mine has the engines mounted in the cockpit and driven through V drives, thus they could pass the exhaust straight through the transom.

Marcus.

 

[Divemaster1]

The exhaust on the Versilcraft and it's sisters from Italy performes two functions ;

1) Bring the exhaust out from the engine room to the outside as early as practicable to reduce noize levels, whilst bringing the exhaust to the stern to minimise soot buildup on hull sides.

2) Give additional hull lift as the stern naturally digs in.

Later hulls, with similar engine configuration also had these....

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u100/Astrale45/2009 W Scotand/DSC_0121.jpg

The JCL Mirage was different in many ways, there amongst the construction method made the hull lighter and engine configuration was different, with V drives and some nice details around the rudder and propellor details, which reduced the drag and thus increased speed and hull lift.... making her having a very good turn of speed with lighter engines (Fords) than the hevier Detroits her sister hulls had fitted.

 

[vas]

Some bad and some good news.

Bad first, there's a (possibly) unsolvable (if that's an acceptable word!) problem with the paperwork, so this particular Mystere is a non-starter....

However, I called and talked extensively on the phone with the owner of another Mystere (Greece is full of Mystere's apparently , well all four of them on sale...) which is (accoding to descriptions) in a much better state.

Removed from water annually, sanding out antifoul down to bare wood and priming/treating again (apparently)
Engines replaced in 1999 with two IVECO 8061SRM33 (330hp) units brand new, serviced since by main dealer in Athens (paperwork to prove it apparently)
Craft does 20knots @ 2100rpm and needs 55lt/h for both engines which sounds a bit optimistic, but I'd not complain if so.

Interior in v.good nick, plotter/gps/vhs (no radar)

Exterior in good condition, aft teak deck needs some TLC but not structural damage. Front teak all the way to the bow is covered with marine ply (glued and bolted on original teak) and covered with a plastic(?) thing don't know it, described as white with black lining probably resembling princesses white decking. Don't have a clue how it looks like, but will see.

All docs are okay (first craft I find in Greece after 6months with proper/complete paperwork) so I'm looking forward to viewing and exploring it.

Now, anyone got pointers on that material used to cover the teak?

Also and most important, anyone has IVECO 8061 SRM33 pdf manual, specifications, whatever? Haven't got a clue what this engine is.

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

Hello all,

On Thursday I viewed another Mystere 43 (or 42 or 45 or whatever I don't care anymore....)

Built 1976, brought to Greece from new, two owners. Current owner for last 30years currently in his 70ies and on sale due to health problems. So all looks ok on this front.

Basic points:

Hull out of the water annually, scraped to bare wood (pretty sure it's marine plywood), primed and coated and antifouled. Hence, there's no zillion coats of paint and antifoul on right now, hull is simply scraped, no paint removed but on a few spots as it stands out of the water now.

MystereMarcus, this one also has a 3/4 keel, identical to the other one, so I guess all of the original designs had it.

Last year owner had to get it out and patch/replace an area 3 by 2 ft on the port side of the hull plus another 6 by 3 inches. He didn't like the repair and the way it was carried out (neither do I!) and I'm a bit worried that there are more problems to be found but will check again. Work had to be done in a rush, so not on his normal place but on an island with unknown labour that obviously did a poor job.

Having said that I've spend a good half hour under the hull poking it with my car key (got to remember and bring a couple of screw drivers next) and no soft spots could be found.

Seems that no expence spared as far as engine and subsystems maintenance were concerned (which is a good thing and it really shows in the engine room which is the best I've seen).

Compared to the first one, this has EIFO engines 8061SRM33 (330hp) installed in 1999, brand new by the Greek dealer and serviced annually from them. Owner claims 55-60lph on 20knots (way too optimistic, The owner of the previous mystere I've seen with the cat 375 engines claimed 80lph for both engines. Divemaster on a similar hull gets 110 or so lph on his setup, we shall see...

There is a green coloured MASE (sp?) gen at 8kw or thereabouts, couldn't find the label with specs/serial #, 4 new batteries and all usual stuff.

Stern gear is cleaned and looks okay.

Interior is shabby at places, B- at others and generally used (not abused though) heavily and worn. Seems that the owner spend long periods of the summer on the boat, gen has 900 odd hours.
As far as the cabins and heads are concerned that's no prob as I'm currently having a go in AutoCAD redrawing the layout and trying to gain two extra beds in an semi-open plan layout on strbrd side where the two heads were. Plan is to remove the crew cabin in the bow, shift the master bedroom forward and getting the two heads on the port side. Only thing that remains intact is the two single bed room on port side. Seems to be feasible and quite excited about the renovation prospects.

Helm is basic (to spartan), but new controls for the EIFO engines are bolted on the back of the gauge panel and will have to get intergrated replacing the stock ones.
There is a old school autopilot and depth thingy no radar and no gps, so will probably have to fork out for a GPS/depth/autopilot device, pref 3 in one not to clutter the dash.

Got a 70something vintage S.P. Radio which I'll probably be keeping as it looks brilliant (got to figure out if it works though and if it has any use as a vhf or not...). There's a normal vhf (very plasticy and godawful 80ies design).

Aft of the helm position is a nice detail with 7X6 flags.

Galley needs a lot of TLC but nothing exceptional.

As in all the crafts I've viewed (70ies italian stuff) there's no black water tank, two electric sea toilets and a electric immersive heater (!)
Fuel tanks are two totalling 1200lt in the proper position (to the front of the engines). Engine room is rather spatious which is a good thing, cabling is relatively well organised (bilge pumps are slightly messy, have to be checked carefully)
Water tanks are also two (?) symmetrically placed to the aft of the engines look like 200-300 lt each.

On the outside, the teak deck going to the bow is covered with marine ply and glued on top is a 2mm plastic thing that looks like the typical eighties bow deck (white with black strips)
Not in a v.good state but could keep it for a couple of seasons before removing all that and refitting new teak (depending on funds).

Aft teak deck will need replacement soon as sealing is going, but not too badly yet.

Exterior needs scrapping and priming/painting everywhere, the black surroundings of the helm windscreen is painted white and it's removing some of the design lines - easy to fix.

Flybridge helm is in need of serious renovation/redesign. There's also a bimini frame up there.

Things to do:

Paperwork check on the 17th (seems to be okay)

A check with a wood specialist (there's no thing such as proper surveyors down here, so need to get speciallists for everything!)

Another check with an engineer, starting up the engines which I'm pretty sure will be fine, the gen and checking about.

Pending on all being fine and negotiating a reasonable price (starting price is 25K euro), I could see the whole thing going ahead within a month and doing the 190nm trip from Athens to Volos first week of October as I'll be touring Italy throughout September.

as always open to comments, notes, opinions before it's too late!

cheers

V.

 

[Divemaster1]

.....On Thursday I viewed another Mystere 43 (or 42 or 45 or whatever I don't care anymore....)
.............Compared to the first one, this has EIFO engines 8061SRM33 (330hp) installed in 1999, brand new by the Greek dealer and serviced annually from them. Owner claims 55-60lph on 20knots (way too optimistic, The owner of the previous mystere I've seen with the cat 375 engines claimed 80lph for both engines. Divemaster on a similar hull gets 110 or so lph on his setup, we shall see....

Looks like she have some good potential.....

Let's be honest about fuel figures :

Average diesel of that age will bun roughly 200 grammes per Horepower hour...

Marine diesel weight is approx 0.86 Kg per litre...

This gives 200 gramme * 0.86 = 172

as there are 1000 centilitres in each litre divide this by 1000, and you'll get 0.172 L per Hp hr.

Take that and multiply by the engine power ... this time 330 hp and you get slightly below 57 Litres per hour.... multiply this by two engines and you'll get 114 Litres per hour.

I'd hazard to guess that with 660 Hp on tap, with the wooden hull, 20 knot is about max speed...... and as such owner is not wrong stating about 50 L per hour .... but failing to state that it is for each engine...

In a seperate PM you asked about layout... so here is a poor image (will try to find a better one).

 

[vas]

Take that and multiply by the engine power ... this time 330 hp and you get slightly below 57 Litres per hour.... multiply this by two engines and you'll get 114 Litres per hour.

I'd hazard to guess that with 660 Hp on tap, with the wooden hull, 20 knot is about max speed...... and as such owner is not wrong stating about 50 L per hour .... but failing to state that it is for each engine...

In a seperate PM you asked about layout... so here is a poor image (will try to find a better one).

Thanks for the analysis Alf, explains how it should be.

Few points:

owner claims 22knot cruise and 28knot max speed. That is close to what the owner of the first one with the Cat engines mentioned. So don't know if they're not heavy as we'd expect them to be. BTW, engines are 575kg each dry or 640kg with the ZF-MPM 220A-1 and 670 with a twin disk MG 5061 box. Needless to say I've no clue which one is on, will have to check.

Got no specs for the craft (weight, installed power from factory and consumption figures), versilcraft website is non existant and I've not managed to source any info elsewhere.

Mind you owner claims that 20knots is around 2000rpm, so plenty of revs to go up to the max speed on WOT (what 2.5K or 2.6K rpm?)

So on these accounts, maybe consumption figures could be re-evaluated downwards from 110lph to the 80 or so that the owner of the cat engined mystere claimed for 20kt cruising.

Anyway, discussion is becoming rather academic, unless I get it and do the 190nm trip from Athens to Volos I wont really know how she behaves and what the consumption is.

A larger plan would be nice, although it looks like we're following the same lines but seems that the shorter length on the mystere is difficult to get all in place. Curious on the srtbrd room and it's layout, I guess just one bed, right?

cheers

V.

 

[Divemaster1]

Stb Cabin

......... Curious on the srtbrd room and it's layout, I guess just one bed, right? QUOTE]

The Stb cabin is a twin bunk bed ( L_ ).... with the upper in front of the engines and feet under the slightly raised deck towards the galley....(in front of the stairs)..

 

[Divemaster1]

Take it you have seen these ..... the JCL's...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.hayward/Pages/Mystere.html

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.hayward/Pages/Mirage.html

 

[vas]

Take it you have seen these ..... the JCL's...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.hayward/Pages/Mystere.html

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.hayward/Pages/Mirage.html

sure have,

that's where I got the plan I'm working on for the rearrangement of the cabins.
Actually yours seems like a scaled up version of the v. mystere and the jcl one.

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

new info and photos following a second visit last Friday.

Was trying to figure out if what the skipper was saying was true, if there are any hidden issues with the craft and generally the overall condition.

Started with half an hour poking with a sharpish narrow screwdriver the hull trying to find soft spots and other signs of decay. None was identified, all plywood seems fine (except for the dodgy patches done two years ago in a hurry)

Had a look at the bilges at the middle and had a pleasant surprise with a spagetti setup that was plain joy to figure out what is doing what...

Plumbing for the heads was in a better state (slightly...)

Spotted the autopilot box (got to read if it's worth and can interface to a garmin plotter or it is to be scrapped)

and the aircon where I was planning for an extra bed (still attainable)

Had a hours talk with the skipper who confessed that the owner being bored and with a bilge pump psychosis would often alter setups and plumb new bits and complicate things just to make sure everything is safe (which clearly aint!)
The owner as it appears expressed all his creativity in electrical modifications (seen around the masterbedrm and to a lesser extend in the salon) hence counted 6-7 bilge pumps around (keeping the sliding door of the salon open, etc).
It also seems that being rather overweight, the owner couldn't easily fit through the aft deck hatch to the engine room hence the damage there is much smaller and again relates to the bilge pump...

Overall, it looks like it's a good craft and if paperwork is okay (should know first week of Sept) I'll go ahead (pending engineer and carpenter report).

That's for now!

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

some more info,

PYB helped me contact a knowledgeable surveyor that BartW also used (thanks a lot William!) who replied over the w/e saying that Versilcraft Mysteres are indeed made of plywood and not laminare and furthermore relatively cheap plywood from Kaja wood (haven't got a clue what that means) and he'd be very cautious in getting such a craft as maintenance costs would be quite high.

I think I'll take his suggestion onboard as far as finding the best way to seal the whole hull (externally) but if all paperwork is okay, I'll go ahead with the sale...
So more info to come before the end of the week hopefully.

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

third visit yesterday, engines started and run with almost no smoke at all, very smooth and quite impressed. All looks fine, deposit paid and arranged for the mechanic to do a service, oil, filters, impellers, check of gearbox, engine, water heat exchangers, engine anodes and a few more bits.

Shore power is fine, service batteries sufficiently charged in an evening (4X110Ah ones) the two engine batteries were fine after 5 months on the hard.
I guess if the skipper had switched off the fuse for the refrigarator the service batteries would be also fine...
Gen battery (small car battery there) is empty, got to charge it through the others and start it, didn't have time though.

Things to do before the 190nm delivery trip from Athens to Volos are priming some parts of the hull exposed for checking, and a bit of antifoul on them since she'll stay in the water just for a month then off for extensive renovation/rebuilding.

So, well excited, off to Italy for two weeks and then back for the delivery. Few small qs and points will go to separate threads and expect a delivery thread first week of Oct and a loong rebuilt one throughout the winter!

cheers for the help and encouragment

Vassilis