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Super yacht crew

We also work on large yachts. These photos show some interesting jobs we have been involved in.

Earthrace

Team Yachtwork served as ground crew for the 2007 Earthrace round the world speedboat record attempt. Scott blogged heavily during the race building suspense and readership. Earthrace eventually suffered structural damage in the Mediterranean.

Team yacht stayed on after the race and oversaw the repairs to Earthrace. Team Yachtwork secured sponsorship and after a six-week haul out started a northern European tour joining the tall ship festivals in the Baltic. Team Yachtwork managed the tour, captained the vessel and secured a project saving sponsorship in Rostock, Germany before handing the organization back to the founder Pete Bethune.

Scott’s book on the Earthrace adventure is available here.

Feadship-De Vrouwe Christina

Team Yachtwork served a year aboard this unique 83ft Feadship, built in 1957. A six million Euro refit was completed in 2005.  She is a steel riveted hull with teak cabin sides and teak over steel decks. 

This unique 83ft Feadship was built in 1957. A six million Euro refit was completed in 2005.  She is a steel riveted hull with teak cabin sides and teak over steel decks. 

We keep the DVC in pristine condition at all times.  She is functional as well as beautiful.  From the outside she looks like her original design as a Dutch sailing Tjalk, but from the inside she is open and modern. She is powered by two Perkins Saber 300Kw main engines and two Kohler 35kw gen sets. 

She has been refit with every modern convenience including: electric winches, hydraulic bow/stern thrusters and windlass, a complete Miele galley, and a powerful air-conditioning system throughout. The navigation system is based around the Simrad and Micad  touch screen with dual station readouts.  A Fleet 55, Mini M, Global Star, SeaTel, and every other modern convince make this vessel state of the art. 

This brightly varnished boat is a show stopper. On the dock tourists line up to take photos and when underway vessels of all types cruise over to get a closer look at her beauty and charm.

Scott is the Chief Engineer while Allison is the Captain. Under the care of Team Yachtwork, DVC, raised her sails for the first time in over two decades. 

The owners are living aboard full time along with Team Yachtwork.  

We departed Florida in June 2006 and visited Mexico, Belize, the Rio Dulce of Guatemala, Roatan, San Andreas, and completed three Panama Canal transits. I have included below some photos of the DVC working her way up the Rio Dulce. 

The current was almost three knots against us. Still the DVC was making constant headway in the light winds.

This photo shows the lee boards in use.  

Russian Super Yacht

When the Russian super yacht La Gran Bleu arrived in New Zealand with a list of electrical problems they called Yanmar Engineering and Team Yachtwork.

We completed repairs on four of the deck loaded boats. The 60ft sailing yacht needed new capacitors installed on the Panda generator. The Lewmar PLC board that controls all the sail was playing up but now works like a charm. The 50ft launch with MAN main engines was having  battery/starting/charging problems, but now is online and ready for action. 

Much of this work was completed during the Christmas holiday period and new years 2006'. The crew told me I was the best "Tender Engineer" they had ever come across.

French Super Yacht

Working for Yanmar New Zealand in 2005 we received a phone call from a new French Super Yacht sitting in New Caledonia. They had alarms going off showing a ground fault when they shut down the generators. They had already flown two French electricians and then the boats electrical designer. All three had worked for days and did not make any progress in solving the problem.  

I arrived to the boat to find an alarm sounding when the gensets started or were shutdown. On searching the electrical panel I found one of the relays to be wired backward and corrected the problem. The French engineers seemed upset the problem was so simple and yet they had all missed it. Since we had scheduled five days for the repairs I was able to enjoy New Caledonia for a few days after the work was done.

EEX on the Rocks

One windy nasty day in Sitka, Alaska a relief Captain missed the docking and put the Executive Explorer on the rocks, damaging the port propeller. We had no dry dock available to change this 600lb, 48", five bladed prop. We beached the boat at high tide and at low tide we were able to successfully change the prop.

The accountants of the company at the time told us the economic loss to the company, if we failed, would mean bankruptcy. We completed the 6 day schedule with a half hour to spare. We had to find an acceptable beach, work the tides as we put the 104ft, 1/4" plated catamaran on the beach, change the propeller, refuel, sail 800 miles, and pick up our next group of 49 passengers. Scott was Chief Engineer for this project.

EEX Gearbox

This photo is the result of a gear failure on a 1500hp gearbox. When we called the German manufacturer they stated they had never been able to successfully repair one of those gearboxes inside a vessel. Again, having the boat down while we waited would have been a great financial loss to the company.

We flew in one technician from the manufacturer and in just 10 days were able to make a complete rebuild of the gearbox, every clutch plate, every gear including the 200lb bull gear, and every bearing was changed. The rebuild went on around the clock in two work teams for 9 days.

One team led by Scott and one by the Port Engineer of Glacier Bay Tours and Cruises. When we finished the gear held, and is to the best of my knowledge still running in commercial use.