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1998 40'SS structural integrity of forward Upper Deck.

Discussion in 'Ocean Yacht' started by james wheeler, Mar 21, 2020.

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  1. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Im happy to have found this forum. Looking through it , i see the search feature is going to help my when I am scratching my head, trying to find some obscure info on the 40' I purchased this month. Looking through the posts I had to laugh when I found the 12vAc light issue came up on here as well... that could have saved me a couple days...

    Anyway, since I got no response after emailing Ocean for structural info of their older vessels, I thought someone on here may know as well. Ive also seen some other resources mentioned on older threads, and will contact some of them as well. I need to add fuel capacity to the vessel and am looking at options for where, other than the cockpit to stow it. The cockpit obviously gets very crowded with more than a 300g bladder sitting there. My eyes first took be to the bow to add another 300-500g badder, both out of the way, and counteracting the poor handling characteristics she'll get with just the stern loaded as well. My main concern is the strength of that roof/deck to handle 3000lbs strapped to it, its al ot as a static force, but with vessel movement it is amplified in many directions. The direct pressure is not tremendous, as ATLs 500g Fuelocker has a 70"x66" footprint, meaning the theyre would be around 0.6PSI but all the othere directions the total force exerts worries me. However a lot of my friends own slightly larger boats with bayboats to 23' cradled in that same position, but They may have special build consideration, just to do that, im not certain.

    Thanks in advance for any insight, or other considerationsas to where to stow more fuel, until next year when Ill be adding more tankage.
  2. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    Not surprised you heard crickets from Ocean. Not much they could say without creating liability. I used to run a 43' Ocean SF and I'm surprised you need that much extra fuel. We got great fuel burn even running at 29 kts from Miami to NY I think less than 30 gph. I remember the boat not liking quartering seas cause of the narrow transom, and slapping hard against small oncoming waves cause of the light bow. Ran with much the feel of a sportscar. That's a lot of weight to put either in the stern or on the bow. I remember a pretty roomy space between the motors where we kept an inflatable and outboard. Might be a place to look at, centered and low.
  3. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Thank you for the quick response.

    As far as the need for capacity, I'm basing it off of what the past owner told me, which was that it got fairly near the same economy as the 65ft Breaux I ran for 4 years, up until this past September. Though the boats are apples and oranges, and this holds 27kt as opposed to 15kt, I was intimately aware of every single drop i burnt in the other, based on distance.

    That being said for a standard daily run 36nm out and back both vessels burned 155g +/- 5, and the areas I want to access several times a year are quite a bit further with the closest being 155nm from port, others I've already been to ae as much as 230nm, (in the other vessel, i could pull this off with a bit of educated speed control killing 80nm 1 way trolling for less than 850g) and one I'm looking at is pushing 350nm.

    Obviously I wont know factual burn the way I drive until I get some sea time on her to familiarize myself with how she responds to the way I operate. Some things will change, i.e. I know my predecessor operated from the viewpoint that boats only had 2 load settings, 0% and 100%, and I just dont run that way, plus I'm fairly good at choosing opportune moments to slow it down if speed is of no importance.

    However, IMO 410g of fuel capacity, that that this boat was built with, Isn't going to get me to the places I need, at least not for a round trip.

    I know others have taken similar vessels out with a 300g on the stern and dumped it wen they got to the spot they planned to begin fishing, and came home on their own tanks after that, which is fine, but I plan to go farther and have already planned some much longer trips than is common around here. I also thought the bow might be a good place to help even out the ride caused by the bag on the stern... of course on second thought i did not take into account the wishbone effect created by those two forces fighting the buoyancy between them and, your right , doesn't seem safe for the entire structure in the long-run.

    The spot you mentioned does have quite a bit of room, Ill have to look and see the capacity. Part of my does not care for it though, as I hate doing anything that creates a physical barrier between the engines and myself in the even of a malfunction somewhere, before I burned enough to pump the bag down, but I may have to reconsider it. Then there's always fire concerns....with non-metalic containers in engine rooms for oily substances....

    Still All options are good ones to open my mind to the possibilities, thank you for another viewpoint
  4. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    The 43 I ran had the Yanmars. Thinking back we clocked 23 gph running mostly at 90% (29kts.) We made Miami to Lindenhurst , NY. 5 or 6 times. Fastest run was 5 days. I believe our record run was Miami- Mayport- Charleston-Coinjock- Atlantic City-Lindenhurst. (Check those distances. I don't think you'd have any problem with the 230nm, but I think the 350 nm would be close. Don't remember the tank size, but you might be within 50 gals of making it.) Once coming into Ocean City, Md. in about 10' seas and outgoing tide required WOT to climb the backs of the waves and full reverse and a lot of throttle play to keep it straight when I fell off the front. Another time coming south from Hilton Head in about 14' seas we were following another 43 Ocean. He was on auto pilot. First I'd be seeing his transom, next I'd be looking at his bow rail as his mate donated his breakfast off the back, lol, till I convinced the cap to go manual. Light boat and a narrow transom. So I'd be hesitant to stick another 1,800 lbs at either end. But of the two I'd put it in the stern. Another advantage the engine room gives you is the automatic fire control, and no odd looks from the CG.
  5. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Yeah I didn't think about the fireboy

    but one thing I didn't clarify, these are fishing trips to the middle of the Gulf, no fuel there, those distances are half the voyage as there's no fuel dock. As opposed opposed to islAnd hoppers or something.

    This one has the 3126s in it with only 410g in saddletanks
  6. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    Honestly I couldn't imagine using bladder tanks or ever barrels except for transports. Out in the Gulf for fishing I'd be more inclined to meet a commercial vessel and transfer fuel or if this is to be routine have a 3rd tank installed.
  7. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    I agree, and with more time, and capital I will. The void between the fishbox and Laz bulkhead looks very friendly for a 300ish tank, and would give me a great excuse to double fishbox capacity and install encapsulated chiller plates during the refit. Another place I thought of was under the Master bed, I haven't taken it apart yet to see what if anything is under it, and if it could be rerouted somewhere, and what you mentioned earlier, the space between motors would allow for another 200 or so and still be able to barely move around underway, in there.

    The possibilities for a permanent solution are limitless with the same company that makes the bladders, I'm looking at , also making inserts to repair/replace any size tanks by filling the old void with an expanding bladder and using it as the tank from that point on. Time is a factor, as I have 2 trips so that duration ,and float plan , sold for May (if the Panic doesn't change things), as well as money, as I'm almost all in at this point, and contrary to what my projections were on closing, the tourism industry is going to struggle this year, so assuming I even survive, professionally, the impending disaster of a season, my new business is not going to be in a position to make that type of major, non essential refit until at least a year after I had planned on doing so.

    As far as the bladders on fishing trips go, its pretty common for people, here ,on small boats, like this, to load bladders for their fishing trips of this type. The trick is to plan that the bladder on your stern should be of fairly close to the exact amount, that you anticipate using on your initial steam, and then pumping it into the main tank{s}, and stowing it, before you begin fishing, so that you can have the cockpit clear for fishing , both for everyone's freedom of maneuverability and for the safety of the bladder, which itself costs 3 as much as of the fuel it protects.

    At the end of the day, I can keep these first few trips within 200nm offshore, utilize a 300 in the cockpit and wait for my opportunity to chop up a perfectly good boat to come, before venturing further...
  8. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    I was wondering how you were going to fish around the bladder. lol. Be sure to center the weight. As I mentioned before this is a light, balanced boat, That weight will certainly affect the handling and could even make it difficult to get on plane. If you do opt to install a permanent 3rd tank I think you're going to find your water tank below the master bunk but I could be wrong. You don't want fuel tanks in your sleeping quarters anyway though. One boat I ran had wing tanks beside an aft stateroom and it stank of diesel when the tanks were full. If you install a third tank in your engine room it'll better maintains your center of gravity and you can plumb it into your cross over for switching tanks or transferring fuel from one to the others.
  9. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    BTW, you mentioned using the bladder on a charter. I'm no legal eagle, but maybe someone more knowledgeable will weigh in on using a bladder tank and transferring fuel from it at sea with charter guests on board. Something is nagging at me about that.
  10. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    I truly thank you for all your insight, you definitely brought up a few things for I had not considered, and sparked ideas that weren't there. I am thinking that would be the best place for a fresh water tank as well, however the fill opening is 2 bulkheads away, in the cockpit sink, seems odd to me to have a run like that, but hey, they reduced 120vAc to 12vAc instead of just running all the lights into 12vDc ... I'm no engineer, I just always wind up stuck in their booby traps!!!

    Yeah I ran a 80ft Breaux for a few years, and also decked on it a few more as a teen, that had the 3000g tank under half the 36 person bunkroom. For years and years, there were various complaints and internet slander about the smell in there. During the first few months after I tool over it was a mission to find and fix it, and I would up locating many various pinholes caused by electrolysis in both the upper, outboard corners as well as every one of the fuel fills and vent pipes. someone had secured all that aluminum with either copper or brass hardware some 30+ years before, and it had long since finished being any type of support since what barriers had been there had rotten away, and began eating up so many parts of that poor boat. No one else ever located and fixed it, because it was behind false walls with extremely few and very tiny access panels. Shortly after we chased and patched all the spots, the smell was gone, and I believe never came back...

    However that was an inspected aluminum hull with integral tanks. This is both the first fiberglass hull Ive ever run, and also the first uninspected vessel I've been on more than a week...I am not certain what,if any, differences an uninspected fiberglass boat might inherently face as far as if the boat you were on possibly was not vented properly and securely since the builders did not have to follow such strict guidelines? Also would a fiberglass boat ,and the limitations over welded metal, allow those vented fumes easier access back into a compartment? especially on a sportboat that possibly has circulation vents above the waterline but below the deck, side louvers, that the fuel vent may be located adjacent to, as opposed to above deck on a reverse elbow pipe vents?

    The ER tank plumbed properly, would not only be an additional crossover, but one that is actually effective, as the same engineers decided all the fuel on this specific build at least, should try to crossover through 1/2 lines at the racor manifold, lol....also it becomes an effective water trap/sump.

    As far as legalities go, the older I get the more I learn that my assumptions are wrong, were always wrong, and whatever event led me to believe them was wrong as well, as far as the law goes! However for three years I ran a 50' Delta in AK doing week long hunting charters 4-5 months out of the year, and we carried 6 barrels of diesel and 1 barrel of gasoline (zodiac) on deck of each boat. We were regularly checked by state and federal authorities, as our permit was a specific to a grey area called transporting, that was so very contested by the registered guides because of the loss of revenue unlicensed guides cost them, that we were always under heavy scrutiny. As well I always was rigged for hunting at both my topside and biannual USCG, and no one ever made remarks.But as I said Ive been on the wrong side of "not knowing any better" and lost with my honest ignorance plea defense, so back into the CFRs i go!

    For the handling, yes its anticipated to be sluggish, loose speed, and adversely effect stability. I can accept all of those realities for the first half of a trip. one nice thing is, if planned properly is is self correcting until halfway though the trip when you SHOULD have used all the above deck or extra fuel.
  11. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    There was a big problem with fuel fill necks back in the 90's and early 2000's. They allowed the release of fumes and leaked. Only manufacturer I remember not getting caught up in it was Boston Whaler. Has nothing to do with fiberglass though. never heard of fumes going through it. The fill necks are inside the hull. Many rules are lax for transporting. That may be why you weren't bothered about carrying the spare fuel in AK. Otherwise there's strict regulations on where and how spare fuel can be carried, and I expect the CG is more strict since that tragedy with the dive boat in California. For an uninspected vessel you probably won't have the CG looking at you much unless they do a safety inspection although I'd hate to find out by them terminating my charter. My big concern would be liability should something (fire, fuel leak) happen. There's some lawyers and engineers on here though and hopefully they'll chime in as I can only guess.
    As for the handling I strongly suggest you take a run with the bladder before taking the guests on board. It would be embarrassing if you plowed the whole way out at 5 kts with your bow in the air.
    Btw, you expect to burn 300 of your 400 gal main fuel supply on the way out so you can empty the bladder tank before fishing? That means you plan to burn at least 600 out of your 700 gal total supply. Not good. Remember your rule of thirds. 1/3 out, 1/3 in and 1/3 for emergency. You need to be carrying 900 gals (plus what you need for fishing) for what you plan. You need 2 bladders.
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2020
  12. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Roger, Planning on that one for sure, borrowing a bag, for the stern, and weather permitting taking some friends out next week. As far as the lawyers go... yup, is all I can say. Honestly other than carrying a bag of somewhat explosive fuel on a moving deck of a boat with people not trained to be around it into unknown conditions at night, I don't see anything going wrong. lol. Honestly I don't see anything going wrong, that I would live through to attend the deposition. lol My worst concern would be a spill and the headache following protocol 200nm out would be vs. the much larger (i know from experience) headache of non-reporting violations.

    Yeah bad business over there. I was coming in to San Diego, that morning, from a tuna trip and heard it on the radio while BSing with the crew...

    Thanks for the tip on the fill necks, something extra for my to-do list tomorrow. I already didn't like the vent location. the first time i filled her, last week, there was no burp and no way to contain a hiccup ,not that I knew where it was anyway beforehand.
  13. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    They sell bottles that suction cup over your vent to catch hiccup.

    Something occurred to me as I closed my eyes last night. I have a feeling that someone is yanking your chain. You said you have a charter booked to take people fishing 200nm from shore in the gulf. I assume that's a multi-day charter. So along with a huge outlay for fuel you've got crew, food and whatever else. What fish is 200nm off shore from you that can't be caught closer in from somewhere between Texas and Florida? Why pay someone new to the business a huge amount to run over days of open water when there's a ton of very experienced local charter boats all along the coast, and why go 200nm from the U.S. coast? What's 200nm south of you? The answer is a desolate area of open water ideal for meeting another boat where you can be offered the opportunity to do something that will get you a new home for the next 20 years or be invited to swim home. The logic would be that coming home in your boat will look like just another near coastal day charter, but of course Homeland, the DEA and the CG will probably have an eye on you from the time you leave the dock with that extra fuel.
  14. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    No, your what is yanking your chain or anyone else. What you going to want to look up how much is "fishing the Texas floaters" the short answer is that we have oil wells that are semi-submersible in float in between 3000 and 10000 feet of water outside the Shelf. The closest one of my home Port is 127 miles away, but it's hit to hard. Others are distances of 155 181 192 211 Etc on out there to the one that I would like to go to which is pushing 350 nautical miles. We actually have some of the richest fishing grounds in the world that nobody knows about here in Texas believe it or not it's common for all types of boats to head out there for multi-day trips to load up on yellowfin tuna go Bill fishing excetera excetera excetera. But when I was younger before these rigs were in place oh, we can catch a hundred fifty pound yellowfin tuna within 30 miles of the beach oh, they really come in that close and it certainly not consistent, now that they have these homes permanently well offshore that are always stocked up with food. I'm actually fairly well known in my area for taking multi-day trips out there on larger boats with more people, I'm just new to the luxury side of the equation oh, and some people already signed up enjoy fishing with me. In addition to those spots is also a few areas breathtaking stunning Beauty over 200 miles from our court, while not being anywhere near that far offshore, that are unlike anything else in the world and honestly I just like going there because there's a beautiful places that offer opportunities I never see except for the times I get there one thing about it you never know what you're going to say when you get out of those type of area is Less Traveled. But don't feel bad I always wait for people to call PS when they put saltwater fishing in.

    Don't worry though, very few people realize what we have here Jonathan said before and I always said that the best fishing in the world that no one knows about. You're not the only person I've had be shocked both by the fact that we have such amazing fisheries, and the depths of our depravity for what we go through access it

    But I'm going to have to look up information on that suction cup catcher until I reroute those events thank you very much for that tidbit I was not aware. Most things are going to catch me up as far as taking care of a yacht for the first time in my life, are going to be all the differences between big boats small boats and work boats and pleasure grabs. I'm a quick study oh, but the learning curve is pretty **** steep here so wish me luck
  15. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Please pardon all my typos today, I'm stuck using my talk-to-text Street, and I'm worse with it than I am with my thumbs
  16. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    An overflow cup is easy enough to make, but here's a commercial version. https://www.davisinstruments.com/product/no-spill/
    I hope you're right about the legitimacy of this charter. I just know that if I were going 10 hours away from shore I'd charter a boat made for what I might run into and with the fuel capacity to do it like a large SF or converted crew boat. On that 43 Ocean I've been in seas that I had to look up from the bridge to see the tops of, and until I saw land I swore I was getting a land job if I survived.
  17. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    ROFLMAO. That and auto correct/spell leaves us all looking not so smart sometimes.
  18. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    Thank you very much for that link I didn't even know such a thing existed. Simple enough to make as well, with nice pictures provided on their website.

    Yeah I feel you, I can totally understand thinking it's a courageous proposition. I won't be able to go anywhere near as many of these trips as I did back when I ran larger party boats, and hope to get at least a half-dozen out career, which is a far cry from 30 to 40 a year I would normally run. However as you mention the weather dictate so very much really small bugs that everything has to line up perfectly with a weather window the week you want to go oh, and also it's cost-prohibitive because so few people can split the bill. I just want to make sure I'm in a position to run them when the opportunity arises, as I said I've already got two sold. As important, if not more so, then the charters is also my personal enjoyment of getting out there and doing it, so there's quite a few times I want to be able to take her out with my friends

    Adult is a weird place when it comes to weather, we get consistent heavy 4 to 6 ft chop throughout the year which is certainly not any kind of fun for anybody in a small boat, rarely do we get the enormous Breakers or even swell that you're familiar with on the Atlantic. I've never personally ever actually been in the open Atlantic, but I noticed some degree is similar to the Pacific which I spend a considerable amount of time in. Night and day difference with a small body of water I'll tell you that much.

    During the primary time when we would do multi-day trips, we have a fairly consistent and predictable set of weather Windows following each major Northern oh, that wall it's easy to be wrong, or typically pretty is it to discern which ones are going to be long enough to do these things and not. Don't get me wrong I've been caught up two or three times and stuff that I wish to hell I'd never gone, couple of the times weren't even in the forecast so I know what you talking about.
  19. james wheeler

    james wheeler New Member

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    It does not look like anyone is going to be chiming in soon on the topic of structural integrity, however let's continue this conversation in private message for him so as not to clog up to Forum back and forth banter
  20. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    I sure as hell wouldn't put 300 gallons on the bow. 100 gallons maybe, but then when it's rough how do you access it? I managed a 63' Ocean that traveled A LOT, and he had 3 aluminum tanks made that filled the center aisle, but still allowed access to everything. Granted you have a much smaller boat, then you're getting into stability issues between all of the fuel, all of the people, all of the ice, gear etc. That is A LOT of weight for a 40' and really should've bought a bigger boat. That being said, Why don't you leave in the afternoon and do7.5- 8 knots from then and throughout that night, then troll a day or part of a day to extend your range? I've done 400NM on 600 gallons on a 62' MY and 550 NM on 750 gallons on a 75' MY by doing just that, running hull speed and only running at cruise twice a day for 30 mins.