Now we get to the fun stuff, or as we say on Wind Horse, “the play room.” If you are concerned with safety, ambiance, cost, and frustration, it starts and stops right here. Get the systems and drive line right and your cruising life will be most pleasurable. Get it wrong, well, that is why so many boats sit in marinas and boat yards, and why dreams often turn sour.
The answer to doing it right is surprisingly simple. It boils down to several basic principles:
- Access
- Using the right gear for the job
- Staying away from complexity unless there is a real need for what that delivers
- Keeping things as simple as possible
- Resisting the temptation to bury systems behind panels which may look clean but hide developing problems.
What you see here is the preliminary layout for the engine room.
These renderings are done with a wide angle lens, so there is a bit of distortion. The goal is to get a view of the engine room as a whole.
We do this now to determine what the challenges are, so that these are resolved before aluminum plate starts being fed into the plasma cutter.
It is a big engine room, with lots of access, good storage potential,
a work bench, sink, and two large tool chests.
Equally important is the systems room just forward. Here live batteries, inverters, transformers, switch panels, fuses, and electronics black boxes. All easily accessed. Got a problem with a piece of electronics? This is where you start.
Here is an example of where 3D layout and real world experience converge. It is evident from the renderings that hull side and bulkhead contain enough space for each of the black boxes. But they are too close for wiring and working on them. So everyone is now aware we need more space. That space may be taken from the storage shelves forward or these may end up on sliding panels.
It will be many months before these areas are detailed in real life, and the final layout could look different. What we’ve done here is prove that the space is available.
Posted by Steve Dashew (March 5, 2012)
March 5th, 2012 at 4:02 pm I’d love to see you do a 55′ design for mass production. Offer it to someone like Bill Kimley of Seahorse Marine (http://www.seahorseyachts.com/) to build and your great grandchildren will still collect royalties.
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Steve Dashew Reply:
Maybe at some point in the future. Right now, we have our hands full.March 6th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
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March 5th, 2012 at 5:51 pm Have been visiting here regularly since the initial birth of the first FPB. Your solutions still impress me. The “Wicked One” may be your best design yet. Much more centralized systems than the 64, less clutter. Smart move. More watertight bulkheads seem to be a possibility now, this way braking some glass will not flood half the boat. (Did like the brilliant concept of the basement though.) - Did not find the sink
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Steve Dashew Reply:
We have looked at the one vs two banks of house batteries many times. It is so much more efficient to have a single large bank, and should a cell die, which has yet to occur, we still h ave t he separate engine/genset start batteries. And now, with the FPB 97, the solar array to back up the batteries. There are gray and black water systems, and we have gone back to VacuFlush heads. There is actually a lot of easily accessed space under the swim step, so engine exhaust valves will not be a problem.March 6th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
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March 5th, 2012 at 8:56 pm Hi Steve, I see V drive like on FPB 64, 2 day tank and fuel filter and pump, oil change system, water maker, air-conditioning or fridge/freezer aggregate, generator, two unidentified boxes under the tooling box. But I don’t see the Kabola or whatever replaces them in the function of heating the boat at anchor? Are they the 2 unidentified boxes, or one of them? If you move the cloth wash/dryer in great room, you make it easier for install all the black boxes. Regards Alain
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Steve Dashew Reply:
The Kabola is not yet shown. Those are black water tanks under the swim step. The washer drier could go in the Great Room. Where it is shown is the worst case scenario systems wise.March 7th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
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March 5th, 2012 at 10:07 pm Hi Steve, What are the length and the width of the 2V battery cells? Regards Alain
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Steve Dashew Reply:
Roughly 215 x 420 x 900March 7th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
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