Making great progress for 21 days(I'd still be trying to find the sharp edge of the saw).
Is that the final position of the diesel tank and if so how are ya planning to ballast the boat level with all that fuel to one side? IDK, it could be a camera angle thing I'm seeing.
Stay after it mate
Hey mate,
Cheers for the kind words of encouragement.
In relation to the tank, yeah shes to one side atm but its not staying there. I've just rolled it over to the side so I could work on the shaft log without restriction. With the tank in position I'll still be able to get to the log to service it (thanks to TF members reminding me about access) but yeah just easier to roll it out the way for the meantime.
Because the tank is alloy, I plan on doing a couple of things before I put her back in position. I'm going to coat the tank with two coats of epoxy to seal it and protect it from pin-holing and I've got to epoxy glue two plastic strips on the tank so when the tank is in position the plastic strips will sit on top of the timber rails without risk of crevice corrosion prior to strapping down.
Once its time to start the finishing install, I will be installing 16x100aph batteries ( 8 either side of the motor ). The batteries weigh 40kgs each so that's 320 kgs either side.
I worked out to balance the boat and give it a lower centre of gravity due to my structural size modifications i made earlier on, the rear 500ltr tank when full will be 500kgs in the arse, the motor weighs about 1000kgs (approx) plus 640kgs of batteries so thats 1640kgs in the mid section then the 500ltr freshwater tank in the nose will be 500kgs. So thats a total below waterline weight of is 2640kgs not including the weight of the hull.
My analysis is that as the top section will be nowhere near this weight, this will hopefully ensure the weight is concentrated at the waterline thus giving the boat a lower centre of gravity and in turn, making it more stable.
I think this will work out fine because I have widened the stern beam to 3mtrs to match the midsection beam of 3mtrs. I also lifted the floor height up 500mm from the original height to get me up out of the water more for open water traveling.
The plan is to add 650mm high sides on top of the floor. on top of the sides i will install 300mm high 40mm round stainless steel uprights with 2 rows of 5mm stainless steel rope/cable down the length of AXE and then install a 50mm timber handrail on top of it all to bring it up to 1mtr overall height from the height of the floor to the top of the handrail.
From the waterline to the top of the handrail will be approx. 2.0mtrs but its a bit hard to estimate this with any kind or accuracy as I'm not totally sure on working out the waterline due to not being sure on the boats weight but what I've read on the net, I've kinda sorta maybe got a rough idea on where the waterline will be.
Confused yet???? Lolololol
It's hard to explain it on paper but its all in my head (like this whole project has been). Nothing like flying by the seat of your pants and making sh!t up as ya go ay! :-D