spannerman
Well-Known Member
Reading the review in MBY reminded me of a delivery nightmare I had several years ago, the dealer I worked for had taken an order for a 52 Xanthos.
The customer was an extremely wealthy person with 5 boats berthed around the world ready for use should he fly in. This boat was just a plaything, and part of the deal was that it had to fit into a boat house with slings so it could be winched out of the water when not in use (US style), it was heavy weather with the Windy punching its way 70 miles to see if it fitted the boathouse, it did, so the order was placed with just about every option available.
Came the day to deliver it, we cleaned the boat thoroughly and filled the two 1000 ltr tanks the night before, the plan was for me to drive the boat over into Stavanger harbour where the customer was on board his 120ft sailboat and do the hand over.
I went onboard to start the engines and do a last check over and when I entered the saloon there was an overpowering smell of diesel, I opened the hatch to the engine room and to my horror saw that the port shaft was under a sea of diesel, it lay along the stringers from one end of the engine room to the other and was covering the floor in the forward berth and port cabin, it had run through the A/C trunking and got into the carpets and bedding.
We found out that Windys supplier had spot welded the internal baffles in the tank incorrectly and when the fuel tried to slosh on that heavy trip to the boathouse it weakened the spot welds, then when the tanks were filled they failed allowing 1000 ltrs of diesel to leak out overnight. The salesman had to go cap in hand and explain why we couldn't deliver the boat, sooner him than me!
Then Windy said no problem we have had several incidents so we know what to do, we will send two new tanks, so after pumping the boat out I motored over to our workshops on just the starboard engine and we put her on land.
Now the fun begins, Windy said if we remove all of the equipment around the engine room the tanks will come out, now the tanks are about 10ft long and sit outboard of the D12's and are fitted before the engines and deck moulding.
I removed the generator, both aircon plants, all the batteries and associated electrics, and all other items near the tanks, we got them free but they wouldn't go through the engine hatch no matter how we twisted and turned them, and the engine room on a Xanthos is HUGE, you could fit another 2 D12's behind the existing ones. Well the new tanks had turned up and Windy assured me that they had run CAD simulations and they should come out OK. In the end they sent a guy from the factory who agreed with us, so first thing was to cut the two tanks in two so we could get them out of the engine room, but that still meant the new ones wouldn't go in, so they were sent back and made into 4 tanks with a balance pipe. Now we managed to fit two tanks per side in the small space outboard of the engines, and then reinstall the masses of kit we had removed, 2 months later we got her back on the sea and delivered to the new owner.
Typical Murphy's law, if things can go wrong they will go wrong.
The customer was an extremely wealthy person with 5 boats berthed around the world ready for use should he fly in. This boat was just a plaything, and part of the deal was that it had to fit into a boat house with slings so it could be winched out of the water when not in use (US style), it was heavy weather with the Windy punching its way 70 miles to see if it fitted the boathouse, it did, so the order was placed with just about every option available.
Came the day to deliver it, we cleaned the boat thoroughly and filled the two 1000 ltr tanks the night before, the plan was for me to drive the boat over into Stavanger harbour where the customer was on board his 120ft sailboat and do the hand over.
I went onboard to start the engines and do a last check over and when I entered the saloon there was an overpowering smell of diesel, I opened the hatch to the engine room and to my horror saw that the port shaft was under a sea of diesel, it lay along the stringers from one end of the engine room to the other and was covering the floor in the forward berth and port cabin, it had run through the A/C trunking and got into the carpets and bedding.
We found out that Windys supplier had spot welded the internal baffles in the tank incorrectly and when the fuel tried to slosh on that heavy trip to the boathouse it weakened the spot welds, then when the tanks were filled they failed allowing 1000 ltrs of diesel to leak out overnight. The salesman had to go cap in hand and explain why we couldn't deliver the boat, sooner him than me!
Then Windy said no problem we have had several incidents so we know what to do, we will send two new tanks, so after pumping the boat out I motored over to our workshops on just the starboard engine and we put her on land.
Now the fun begins, Windy said if we remove all of the equipment around the engine room the tanks will come out, now the tanks are about 10ft long and sit outboard of the D12's and are fitted before the engines and deck moulding.
I removed the generator, both aircon plants, all the batteries and associated electrics, and all other items near the tanks, we got them free but they wouldn't go through the engine hatch no matter how we twisted and turned them, and the engine room on a Xanthos is HUGE, you could fit another 2 D12's behind the existing ones. Well the new tanks had turned up and Windy assured me that they had run CAD simulations and they should come out OK. In the end they sent a guy from the factory who agreed with us, so first thing was to cut the two tanks in two so we could get them out of the engine room, but that still meant the new ones wouldn't go in, so they were sent back and made into 4 tanks with a balance pipe. Now we managed to fit two tanks per side in the small space outboard of the engines, and then reinstall the masses of kit we had removed, 2 months later we got her back on the sea and delivered to the new owner.
Typical Murphy's law, if things can go wrong they will go wrong.
