Risk of Engine Drowning

When the yard I managed became the dealer for a 30′ (9.1m) production powerboat, a colleague and I embarked on a passage from Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda to emphasize the boat’s seaworthiness. Having made the passage many times, I knew it wasn’t too risky even in the relatively small boat, as long as we chose a good weather window, and the vessel’s systems were sound and reliable.

Steve D’Antonio (All)

Insulation has been removed from the exhaust-elbow “riser,” revealing a clear violation of the principles of water-injected exhaust systems and the engine manufacturer’s guidelines. The riser lacks sufficient lift to prevent water from backfilling into the engine.

With that and my own well-being in mind, I carefully inspected the nearly new vessel (it had traveled to a few regional boat shows on its own bottom).

I found some minor defects one might expect on semi-production boats: inadequately supported hoses and wires, incompatible raw-water plumbing fittings, and the like. But I also found one detail that carried the potential for real disaster: the boat's exhaust system was in gross violation of the engine manufacturer’s guidelines and, contrary to the laws of gravity, ran uphill from engine to muffler. Overall, the system looked good—neatly installed, secure, and of high-quality materials—but it was incorrect.

M2 Rollover

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The 58′ (17.7m) Nigel Irens–designed fusion schooner M2 in build at Covey Island Boatworks in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, was something to witness even in last summer’s stop-motion video of her hull being rolled. The wood/epoxy cat schooner, with unstayed rotating carbon fiber masts and overlapping foresail, is a replacement for the 62′ (18.9m) Maggie B, a remarkable oceangoing schooner from the same designer-builder team for the same owner. Maggie B was lost in a fire following a successful circumnavigation, but owner Frank Blair promptly opted to build a new variation on the same theme to replace her. The masts are currently under construction at Composite Engineering in Concord, Massachusetts. M2 is scheduled for launching in June. See more photos of the build at www.coveyisland.com.

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Wave Power

In 2008, much-traveled Japanese sailor Kenichi Horie completed a successful passage from Hawaii to Japan in Suntory Mermaid II, a wave-powered boat, covering 4,350 miles (7,000 km) in 110 days.

Engineers wielding pumps, dams, and turbines have long pursued the potential of “free” energy harnessed from kinetic ocean forces, such as tides and waves. Indeed, France and Canada have built successful tidal generating stations; and multiple floating prototypes promise more electrical generation from wave motion. However, these are all relatively stationary operations that might require boats only for construction, deployment, and service—but otherwise offer little interest to boat builders or designers.

ABYC Standards, Class of 2010

ABYC

The updated version of the 2009–2010 American Boat & Yacht Council Standards has been sent to members and is available on ABYC’s Web site, www.abycinc.org.

For those of you who have not read the new manual, I’ve summarized the major revisions, amendments, and additions below. This report is purely informative and is not to be used in place of reading the complete standard when determining compliance. If you purchased the ABYC Standards on CD, are an ABYC member who can access Web-STIR, or have a subscription to Rulefinder.net, you’ll be able to view convenient and complete Comparison Reports for these documents.

Amended standards include:

ABYC E-11 AC & DC Electrical Systems on Boats
ABYC/ANS H-24 Gasoline Fuel Systems
ABYC/ANS H-33 Diesel Fuel Systems
ABYC/ANS H-41 Reboarding Means, Ladders, Handholds, Rails, and Lifelines and
ABYC/ANS P-1 Installation of Exhaust Systems for Propulsion and Auxiliary Engines

(“ANS” indicates that the standard is approved by the American National Standards Institute.)

Trendspotting

A handful of recent product introductions confirm progressive trends in the industry.

Efficient. Wireless. Hybrid. These terms are redefining industrial sectors—ranging from energy generation to consumer electronics and automobiles—that seem to be pulling our global economy out of recession. Mainstream boatbuilding never really strays far from popular trends, so it’s no surprise that certain products in those same categories stuck in my mind after last fall’s two major marine trade shows: IBEX (Miami Beach, Florida) and METS (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

Sweating the Small Stuff

STEVE D’ANTONIO (ALL)

A missing set screw: easily overlooked, potentially catastrophic.

How many times while working around a boat shop or yard have you heard the phrases “Don’t sweat the small stuff”; “Keep the big picture in mind”; or “Don’t get bogged down in the details”?

Betting on Electric

Nimbus03a

The world is running out of oil. We know that, though at times it’s hard to tell, given the way we continue to buy and behave. When National Geographic magazine published a cover story titled “The End of Cheap Oil”—in June 2004—it was right on. Only a few years later, regular unleaded gasoline at the station had jumped to more than $4 per gallon in the United States, and nearly a buck higher than that at the dock. It’s been estimated that half the world’s oil supply has been consumed in the last 50 years. If true, the end predicted is in sight, if not for all of us, then for our children.

Lifeboats. Built Like Raceboats.

RNLI-1a

Green Marine (Southampton, United Kingdom) is best known for building extremely fast carbon fiber sailing machines custom engineered to be as strong and light as advanced materials and building processes will allow. (See the cover story “Some Like It Hot” in Professional BoatBuilder No. 123, Feb/Mar 2010.) That’s the glamour. The grittier side of Green Marine’s business for the past two decades has been supplying the Royal National Lifeboat Institution with upwards of 125 robust powerboats for search-and-rescue operations in the waters around the U.K. and Ireland.

Winged Victory

Van Oossanen & Associates

In the summer of 1983, in the months leading up to the 25th America’s Cup competition in Newport, Rhode Island, a storm of controversy gathered over the challenging Australian and defending New York Yacht Club syndicates.