32ft Dutch design refit

[jonmartins]

Hello everybody,

My plan finally took a kick start a year ago when I purchased my yacht. I sure came a long way to be able to afford buying a "rust bucket" in my mid-twenties and I can only imagine how hard it is for some of you folks with family, responsibilities and whatnot. At the end, I guess we all love being out in the ocean...

Could make it a long story but down to the bone, the idea was to rebuild the inside from scratch to suit the needs and some other enhancements.

The plans are to set offshore in 2 or 3 years time with no destination in mind to be honest. So we'll try to keep it as simple as possible when it comes to any sort of systems that will be added on. No fancy gadgets and preferably stuff that can be easily fixed or jury rigged on board.

The model of the yacht is unknown. It was built in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand by Mr. Deyer (anybody heard of???). It is of Dutch design which I attached the originals. If anybody has any information on it, it would be great help.

The yacht itself is a single chine, built of Corten Steel. The thicknesses are 5/4/3mm.

I know that there is a lot of experience in this forum and to which many of you are kind enough to share with us amateurs. I am hoping to take many of my indecisions based on such comments. I will consider all comments but please don't feel offended if I can't do it for whatever reason.

Thanks for all your help in advance

Jon

[jonmartins]

The engine on this vessel is a Renault Marine Couach, RC30D. Is anybody familiar with and/or have manuals for it? On the original display it has registered 1200 hours and supposedly is able to run on raw-water cooling.

It has a big flywheel which I am hoping to adapt to a hand-crank start.

The original fuel tank is slightly above the engine and being force-fed by gravity. It will be the only tank and the remaining fuel will be stored in portable cans. Makes it idiot proof for me. It also comes with 3 diesel filters being one of them one of those old school ones that you can use a jelly jar in case it breaks. The others are standard replaceable ones.

My struggle now is on the stern tube system. If properly installed, it seems to work quite well. On the prep to get her to my refiting site, I had to refit the packing gland and everything else and it didn't leak a single drop the whole 10 hours that I motored the thing. And that was with a very bad alignment which vibrated everywhere. I'm sure with a properly aligned engine it would be a reliable system. I attached a pics of the shaft seal and of the diagram of the stern tube.

But I have heard of a solid through hull stainless steel tube which is only flanged on the outside and then attached to the hull by bolts. Any comments on both? Or even a better and obviously affordable way?

The shaft is attached to the transmission box by a system that I have seen in a book somewhere. So I haven't seen many of them around but I guess they were ok, back in the days and very easy to fix. Pics attached

Cheers

[Butch .H]

This is a realy nice boat.

[Brent Swain]

Sure looks like a Ganley Snowbird.
Stainless pipe should be welded in, with stainless welding rods,not bolted.
Looks like that interior needs to be cleaned and epoxy tarred.
Say's rig should work for self steering off that rudder.
Brent

[jonmartins]

Originally Posted by Brent Swain

Sure looks like a Ganley Snowbird.
Stainless pipe should be welded in, with stainless welding rods,not bolted.
Looks like that interior needs to be cleaned and epoxy tarred.
Say's rig should work for self steering off that rudder.
Brent

Thanks for the comments Brent,

Do you know where I could get some info about this Ganley Snowbird? I googled a few times and didn't have luck looking around for that particular model and any Ganley's(apart from a Chevron 30).

Cool on the welded pipe on to the hull. Now a question, what would you use for a seal or bearing on the outside in such case??? The inside shouldn't be a problem since I can use the actual shaft seal.

Ohhh boy, you bet the inside needs to be cleaned up. As a matter of fact, whoever built the thing never sandblasted the inside and simply painted over the millscale. I guess if it wasn't Corten it wouldn't still be in one piece.

My plan is to get all the mods and welding done before I clean her all up. I seem to think that it might not be a good idea to do paint patches specially with this ridiculously expensive Altex stuff I bought. But it is supposed to last 20 years or so.

Gonna work on it this weekend and gather up all the other little projects, pictures and whatnot to put it on here.

Cheers

Jonathan

[OllieBridges]

Hi. I have a manual that covers your engine if you are still interrested in it. I could scan it and e.mail it to you. I have an RC28d in my canal boat which is also covered by the manual (Thank goodness as info about these engines is extremely hard to come by!!!) I'm currently searching for a starter motor for mine. Good Luck!

[jonmartins]

Originally Posted by OllieBridges

Hi. I have a manual that covers your engine if you are still interrested in it. I could scan it and e.mail it to you. I have an RC28d in my canal boat which is also covered by the manual (Thank goodness as info about these engines is extremely hard to come by!!!) I'm currently searching for a starter motor for mine. Good Luck!

Hi Ollie!!!

Ohh man... if you could do me such a big favor I wouldn't even know how to pay back. Yes, I'd love to have the manuals for engine

I could be wrong on this one, but I think you could easily find a local shop that rebuilds alternators to get your starter going again. But if you got no patience for such, I found these guys with parts for all Renault Marine engines:

http://www.renaultcouach.com/.

I've been honestly thinking about jury rigging a crank-start handle to it since it has such a big flywheel and then not even have to bother with the starter at all.

Thanks again

Jonathan

[Brent Swain]

Ganley snowbird was featured in Seaspray magazine in Auckland in the early 70s around the end of 73 or the beginning of 74. It was the design that really got me interested in steel.
I use an oilite bushing for a bearing. They cost arounbd $4. I have used a pvc hose fitting with sucess. They cost around 39 cents.
If you cut a notch about 1/4 inch wide and an inch long with the grinder on both sides of your sterntube , it makes it far easier to get the bearing out with a centrepunch, without having to remove the shaft. You can also put the bearing in a stainless sleeve with a flange welded around. That makes it easy to tap the sleeve out, replace the bearing in it then tap it back in, all without having to remove the shaft. You can even do it underwater.
Brent

[OllieBridges]

Hi. Hope you are okay. Sorry for the delay!! I now have the manual scanned in to my computer. How do I go about e.mailing it to you? All pages are individually scanned as JPEGS. They are approximately 1mb each. I didn't bother with pages 18-23 as they were in french and I have scanned the relevant english pages instead - much more useful! pages 1-17 are in french but have very important photographs crosslinked with the english pages. Hope that's clear. My starter is currently being rebuilt (fingers crossed!!) Had to lift my engine today as the mounts were well knackered.

This is my e.mail address - Olliebridges@hotmail.com.

Speak soon.

Ollie

[OllieBridges]

I've just tried to add pictures as attachments - it won't let me load more than four (I have 36!!) because of file size. I'll have to e.mail them to you.

[jonmartins]

It's been a while since I update the thread, although have gotten much help from some of you fellas. Thanks again

I was dwelling with the engine for quite a long time and for some reason I couldn't figure out why it was giving me so much trouble to begin with. The engine bed was completely off (and that I mean 1 inch) so no wonder why the shaft vibrated like an old washing machine. Didn't understand why somebody would have been so lazy to have it so off, but after pulling the engine out 4 times on my own with a little jack and a pulley, I realized why and for sure I hope to not have to lift that engine again so soon.

So I stuck with the same old bronze stern tube. Had our local dude Steve, one of those guys that is one with the lathe, to check the shaft and throw in a new cutlass bearing.

And a week or so ago, after so much alignment, welding fumes, baldness from hair being pulled, it ran super smooth at high RPM's. Here's a video of her running.

Today I hustled with re-plating the last corroded part of it, the transom. It has a high angle of bending so I had to be extra careful with that heat-distortion-contraction... all that technical babble. It was more of a panel beating feat!!! But all done and good enough for government work

Next week is rudder work... had some of it dropped off at Steve's shop so I'll post that stuff next week. The sandblasting/BBQ/priming/beers has been scheduled for the 1'st of April, unless it was a bad joke from some enthusiastic bunch I know.

Cheers