What do you think ??

Am working at a company here in china and they are deep into building a 90 footer power boat . the boat is narrow by any ones standards and i thought i was seeing things when the pictures materialized a while back for the deck and everything above the waterline .
Still havent seen the hull drawings yet .
So my throughts were its not never going to be a speed machine and will just cruise at a snails pace most places its likely to go so why not use a pair of Volvo IPS units and make it really manouverable and easy to dock and with the addition of a bow thruster could slip in and out of some pretty confinded places with relative ease and could even turn in its own length maybe !.
I now find the company in it typical non thinking wisdom has coming soon a pair of sterndrives !! HP is unknown at this stage!! I just hope theres a big boarding platform to hide these pathetic looking things sticking out the back of the transom .
After the boat goes in the water and its found that its seemingly impossible to manouver away from the dock and when its out and comes back to birth and tie up and if theres wind blowing from any angle !
My next question to ask is going to be how do we fit a stern thruster when we have a pair of sterndrives ?? Going to have to do some pretty cunning pipe work inside the back of the hull to make that work properly i reckon !!!!
This is going to be a interesting story as time goes by i promiss !!

 

I think...... that if the vessel has handling issues when complete that will be the Masters job to be adaptable, I think that if you reckon that the company has "non thinking wisdom" you could find a "smarter" employer. I think that if HP is unknown at this stage that the sooner decided the better, Jeff>

 

Progress persists !

As time goes by we are getting closer to the day when the first coat of gel gets sprayed and the glass get applied over the top .
They sure are not conversant with making big boats thats for sure . Now just think for one moment which would you do !
Make the laminate thick and have less framing totally covering the bottom of the hull
OR use a light lay up and have stiffeners for africa every where including a part way up the side of the hull . ??
After sitting and pondering what the hell is he doing i came to the conclussion he dosent know what hes doing ,
The chances of bad workmanship and glassing not being up to an acceptable standard was way to high for me so i re wrote the schedual and took out 50% of the little intermediate stiffners and added 2 layers of 900 gram unidirectional running across the bottom on the top of the laminate that was there .so now have lessened the chances of bad workmanship having anything to do with it all coming apart at the seems !!. The longtudinal stringers all A one but have a slight change and doubleing the glass thickness on the top as a further plus . I later had our leader and boss person come and sit and want to know all about polyurethane foam glassed over and used as stringers !! no one here has done or seen or knows anything about them .
A few days ago i suggested the company look at smaller ferries that could be build from the same mould as its parallel for most of it total length and could safely use it by simply making the transome complete and sliding it to a pre determined possition then laying the rest of the hull . The young designers mouth dropped !! then after a while he smilled as what i had discribed finally began to sink in through the layers of regimented thinking !
after 2 months of waiting and wanting the deck and cabin details arrived yesterday afternoon Oh my God !! in 5 minutes i had scribbled and drawn all over the photocopies i was handed !Another case of copy and paste from somewhere .And so the fun continues !! :
I really do hope i live long enough to see it in the water and get some pictures !!.

 

Hi Tunnels,
I hope you are not to be identified as the "expert who screwed up" and gets the blame for this mish-mash of dead brain cells, somewhat like this thread? - http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/catamarn-stern-drive-engine-43205-2.html#post556561 The OP has removed several images and links... OOPS you had found it.....

 

No way !! nothing gets dont unless its bettering what the half baked designer has spected !! its added to not instead of !! and its all in writing and approved by the chinese survey team and stamped and returned . When all the glass and materials arrive i have a 2x2 mtr sample to make of a section of the boat with all the things shown in detail so everyone can see clearly and completely understand !!.

That cat is typical of what goes on here . the production boats we do are outragously over built and i keep askng for weight of everything , some parts are more than twice what they should be . They have no concept of using cores so its solid glass that used all the time . There thinking is if it wont go put a bigger engine in it ,weight and design dont enter into it !!

The design of that cat also is stupid as well . Have seen exactly the same thing on another boat in nz ! They ended rebuilding vertually a whole new bottom for each hull to get it to go . total waste of time and money and at the end its always a dog any way !!.

 

The Chinese have been building boats and travelling the world a long time. Maybe they might just surprise you.

An Azimut it may not be but long and thin makes for a fast boat.

Your lucky you have plans.

 

If you ever in this part of the world go see the Maritme museum of old sailing ships in a place called NINGO i went there a month back for the weekend !! i was absolutly amased and yes i was astounded at how advanced they were . Columbas wasnt even a twinkle in any ones eye and they were running rings round the european sailing ships . i bought a book in english and took a swag of pictures !!
Am right into old buildings and finding models of old ships was really exciting !! the society had a stand at the Shanghai boat show and they were reall friendly so when i got home i decided thats where i wanted to go .

 

for frosty!

 

frosty 2

just for you !!

 

I saw the 'bamboo boat' a copy of what was thought to be the first ever ocean crossing chinese boat in Aberdeen Hong kong about 15 years ago. It was being used to replicate the first voyages of the Chinese, not something I would want to do.

 

This is an incorrect assumption. Narrow boats are much easier to propel, so it's likely that it will be fast, though this is just a guess, as no photos or lines can verify it's actual shape. It also seems unlikely, that a project of this magnitude would be underscored with a sketchy design. What's it's beam/length ratio? I recently saw a 80' x11' racer (mono) with a ridiculous amount of diesel powered jets on it.

 

River boats are long and thin. is it for a river?

 

http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/21251/ppuser/29318 Is this the boat/tool Tunnels?

 

Yip thats me!!
i posted those pictures a week or so back
its all completely covered with sheets of white formica now and joins bogged and sanded and just about ready for some final touchs !!

 

Nice boat. I assume it to be a huge lake on which the boat will float.