Zebu Aground Holyhead
- Thread starter Graham376
- Start date
savageseadog
Well-known member
Gary Fox
N/A
Sounds like they're going to break her up, what pity.
dom
Well-known member
pvb
Well-known member
Maybe, but if you were being realistic, how much of your money would you sink into that boat? Anything's possible if you hurl enough money at it, but at some point whoever's in control of the money needs to make a value judgement. If you look at the accounts of the CIC which runs the boat, you'll see they have no money.
Gary Fox
N/A
Yes I wasn't arguing with their decision
Gary Fox
N/A
On reflection, any old heritage type wooden boats with historic value should never be fitted with the trendy so-called hybrid or electric propulsion because, in the long term, flooding is not unlikely, and a simple mishap will render her beyond economic repair.
Whereas diesels and gearboxes can be flushed and back running with a few hours work, and none the worse for the dunking.
pvb
Well-known member
Can't an electric motor be flushed and dried?
Gary Fox
N/A
I did it once but it was a big old DC dynamo, a 50kw 110v Crompton Parkinson, it sort of worked but once the salt gets in, it's hard to get out. Plus there are electronics and computers, with hybrid drive which seawater would kill instantly. So I don't think you can flush them. Plus the newfangled batteries which must be down there as well.
I think a few of these hybrid installations are going to have issues over the next few years, for entirely predictable reasons. Hopefully I'm wrong.
JumbleDuck
Well-known member
My first and perhaps very unfair thought was "alcohol". Perhaps we'll find out in an MAIB report.
savageseadog
Well-known member
It's a mystery or absolutely obvious depending on one's point of view.
It's a great shame, we've accompanied Zebu many times on the Mersey.
Graham376
Well-known member
Used to be based in Conwy 20+ years ago and is alleged to have left with large debt as well as unpaid harbour dues.
savageseadog
Well-known member
One wonders why a Ford Transit engine wouldn't have done. It would cost £100 to replace.
LONG_KEELER
Well-known member
It's all a bit confusing.
Towed to a safe anchorage then goes on the rocks with crew still aboard. One assumes
they would keep an anchor watch on a boat like this.
Perhaps it all just happened too fast to take avoiding action.
Towed to a safe anchorage then goes on the rocks with crew still aboard. One assumes
they would keep an anchor watch on a boat like this.
Perhaps it all just happened too fast to take avoiding action.
dom
Well-known member
The vessel had quite a sophisticated electric propulsion system -- I think fitted after it sank in 2015 -- and I understand she has been suffering from mounting structural issues. She's a strange combination of sophisticated Lottery funded modern technology, set within a creaky oldy worldy vessel.
Perhaps the crew simply didn't know how to start the vessel?
Perhaps something tripped and they didn't know how to reset?
Perhaps it had suffered mechanical failure?
Perhaps something else?
As you say, it's probably a tad unfair to invoke the gods of alcohol at this early stage.
Gary Fox
N/A
+100 or ideally if they had lottery cash. a restored Gardner which is best for the so-called 'environment', as it was built decades ago and doesn't require enslaved children working down chemical mines, like 'hybrid' technology does.
Gary Fox
N/A
Since nobody got hurt or killed, there is no ethical objection to us freely discussing this mishap, saying what we would have done if we were in charge, and apportioning virtual blame.
Dom raises interesting new possibilities about the power system. A barquentine lost because they didn't know which button to press! That is both comical and terrifying.
Dom raises interesting new possibilities about the power system. A barquentine lost because they didn't know which button to press! That is both comical and terrifying.
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penfold
Well-known member
They should just skip the now-salt damaged electrics and fit a diesel; it's a sailing barge, they're built like brick outhouses and the hull is unlikely to have suffered that much. The people running the scheme obviously have much more skill at raising money than running a boat.
I'm not surprised the 'shipping expert' wants anonymity, they don't seem to have much clue about anything other than scaremongering.
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pvb
Well-known member
Because it's all about fundraising, and the people who give away grants are generally woke lefties who want to see pictures of dolphins and read about the ship becoming "100% carbon neutral". The electric drive was no doubt fitted for this reason, and it's enabled them to make the dubious claim that "She has swapped her old engine for a state-of-the-art electric flux motor that is lightweight and compact, and is powered by environmentally friendly rechargeable batteries."
dom
Well-known member
Trouble is a restoration will require deep pockets and the current owners are penniless. Moreover, there is unlikely to be more Lottery funding available, and the insurance company will almost certainly write it off.
If there is a lesson in here, it's as Gary Fox says, we shouldn't be encouraging (with Lottery money in this case) the retrofitting of sophisticated so-called environmentally friendly technologies, designed to work in near-hermetically sealed environments, into leaky, humid, salt-saturated, creaky old vessels, operated by skint amateurs.
Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but alas, I think there'll be no going back for this vessel.