"Should It Really be Legal to Have This Much Fun for So Little Money?" "The Other Woman" Western Australia's best Randell 38 Flybridge Cruiser "Loved Without Regard to Expense" $126,000 The full story below, but
here's a brief video so you can see
 Hull & Superstructure
Mechanical:
Fuel:
Water:
Electrical:
Electronics:
Creature Comforts:
Performance:
So, let me tell you the story of "The Other Woman"... In February 2005, I shook hands with previous owner Tom Papadopoulos at Hillarys Yacht Club, handed him a cheque for $110,000, and took possession of his pride and joy, then known as 'Tom Kat'. Tom had owned her for 6 years, having found her in a state of half-rebuild at Freedom Marine in 1999. At that stage, her re-construction was underway, but Tom, having decided to buy her, stepped in and ordered changes to be made to the new design, doing away with a downstairs helm (takes up too much space) and moving the aft bulkhead forward to provide more room on the deck. After all, that's where we spend most of our time. It was a good move. She was a (very) simple boat. No GPS or Fish Finder. No anchor winch. No VHF radio. Clapped out stereo system. Wiring of indeterminate age and condition. Engine of dubious hours, blowing smoke, but on the surface, running well. I don't know about you, but I'm a bit old-fashioned when it comes to mechanical/electrical things. I like to know that things are going to work perfectly when I want them to work. I've never liked the idea of throwing a switch and hoping everything's okay. When I'm on the flybridge at the helm, and there's all that noise and fury going on below decks, I feel a lot more comfortable when I know everything has been designed and built as it should be, and maintained that way. Pretty soon after purchase, I decided on a major upgrade. And that had to start with the engine and associated electronics. There was probably nothing seriously wrong with the old engine, a Volvo 70D. But Tom wasn't able to tell me how many hours it had done. Could have been 1,000 - or it could have been 5,000. Start one job, create 50 new ones. I didn't feel it was a smart move to buy a brand new engine. For a start, it would have cost close to $50,000, and it just wasn't worth that. Besides, a new engine would mean new engine mountings, probably a new gearbox, and that was starting to sound like hard work. So I began scouring Australia for a re-built engine that would fit on the existing mounts, and take the existing gearbox. And that meant a Volvo. And since there was no point in replacing the existing 270hp engine with another of the same power (I could have simply re-built the existing engine if I'd wanted to do that) I starting looking around for a more powerful, more modern engine. I spent at least two months making phone calls. Damn, these things were scarce as hen's teeth. Finally, during a business trip to Brisbane, and laid up in the hotel room with a cold, I tracked down a marine engineer in Kingston East, near Mt Gambier in South Australia. His name was Tony Alma. I was delighted to discover that Tony was most of the way through a complete re-build on a Volvo 71B. The specs were perfect: 380hp at 2400 revs. The next day I caught a plane to Adelaide, hired a car and drove the 3 hours to Tony's workshop in the middle of the little fishing town. Tony's workshop was immaculate. You could have eaten your breakfast off the floor. He carefully uncovered the engine, already gleaming in its new paint. All that was needed to do was bolt on the re-built parts, such as the heat exchangers, turbo, raw and fresh water pumps and fuel pump. Here's a shot of the invoice Tony sent me, for $17,000:
Five weeks later, the freshly built and painted engine arrived by truck in Fremantle. In the meantime, I'd begun the dirty task of removing the old engine. If you've ever done an engine re-power, you'll know it's a grimy process, where Murphy's Law prevails. If anything is going to go wrong, it will, at the worst possible time. First, almost the entire mid-ships bulkhead had to be cut out to remove the old engine. The shipwrights brought in a mobile crane to reach in and grab all 900kg of it, and gingerly cherry-pick it out of the hole and onto a trailer. (I subsequently sold the old engine for $6,000.) With the gearbox removed from the old engine, Hamilton Marine in Fremantle were able to simply bolt on the existing gearbox. With the engine out, came the filthy job of cleaning and re-painting the empty bilge, while the shipwrights, marine electrician and marine engineer worked out the strategy for installing, hooking up and configuring the new engine's fuel, exhaust, cooling and electrical systems, including a new set of instruments at the helm station. While the engineering team set to work, there was much else to do. I hired Leigh Swift to install new cork flooring in the saloon, replacing the old carpet, and replace the felt lining around the walls. I had also by this time researched and purchased a good fish-finder/GPS package, finally settling on the best - Raymarine, make in the UK. See pictures. Down at M & J Marine, the propeller people were tweaking up the old three-blade propeller to handle the extra power of the new engine (a move that would prove inadequate and eventually result in the design and purchase of a brand new four-blade prop from Japan.) At last, The Other Woman was gently lowered into the water at Royal Perth Yacht Club in Crawley in December 2005. By now, with the initial engine purchase, engineering and electrical work, new anchor winch, new chain and anchor, new electronics gear and sundry shipwright work to - among other things - remove some dry rot in the superstructure, I had spent well over $50,000 - and had stopped counting. (Actually to date that figure exceeds $65,000 - I have the receipts in a comprehensive file, but I'm too afraid to add them all up.) Two weeks before Christmas 2005, the new engine was taken out for her first run. She sounded glorious. Soon the old hull was lifting beautifully out of the water towards the Narrows Bridge, and we were skimming along at a steady 17 knots, when.... the overheating alarm squealed! After much scratching of heads, many phone calls to Tony in South Australia, several visits by mechanics.... turns out that Tony had inadvertently installed a part inside one of the heat exchangers 180 degrees around the wrong way. Easily fixed (phew!) With a new propeller and at cruise revs of 2,300rpm, The Other Woman now comfortably sits at 14.5 to 15 knots, depending on conditions, with a top speed of about 18 knots on flat water. Maintenance:
What needs doing:
All in all, she has given us faultless service for 4 years. Unlike most boat owners, we use her often. Generally we'll take her to Rottnest at least every second weekend. With diesel engines, you can't over use them. We find that the big water tanks mean we can spend a week at Rottnest, shower in fresh water every day, and still have some left over. Call me now to ask for any more information and to arrange an inspection at Royal Perth Yacht Club: 0416 139 520
|
