
SUPERYACHT #9 Summer 2006
Article selected from our quarterly magazine dedicated to the largest
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Article by Alfredo Gennaro
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SUPERYACHTS AND ENGINES A COMPLEX COUPLE
PART TWO
In the first part of the analysis
we began to analyse selection criteria
and discussed "trials" and "numerical presence". In this
second and last part, before drawing the final conclusions,
we shall examine another three aspects which might
condition choice.
The Manufacturer
Financial solidity is a symptom of good quality: or at
least it used to be when customers didn't even know the
shareholders or owners of the company they bought the
product from. And maybe it wasn't such a bad habit, since
shareholders tend to seek profit while managers have to
employ the good business sense that will ensure its achievement.
Whereas management today exploits financial alchemies
that have nothing to do with fineness of the product,
experience and skill of the workforce or evaluations of the
customer. The latter, who was once considered a company's
main asset, is now erroneously considered as a marginal
advantage drawn along by company strategies or by missions
defined by boards of directors who read statistics or
consultants' reports.
So though it may be true that the bigger the group the
greater the guarantees offered by the product, we would not
advise a choice based on this parameter, preferring
concerns that are smaller and therefore more reactive to
market variations and more attentive to the asset
represented by their clientele.
With dismay we followed the disappearance of OMC,
considered the most important outboard manufacturing group,
and breathed a sigh of relief when its operational
companies returned from the world of finance to become the
production company Bombardier.
In January came the news that MTU had been sold to a
Swedish financial company by the Daimler Chrysler Group.
The official reason for the sale sounds pretty dumb:
Daimler Chrysler wants to concentrate on the mission it
believes to be strategic, the vehicle sector, and needs to
get rid of marginal activities. We should like to
understand something more, and we continue to wonder.
The reason could be one of two:
The whole group is in difficulty and has sold the
family jewels to regain liquidity, like soccer teams
that train players and support themselves by selling
off when the players have achieved a certain market
value;
MTU is in difficulty and the group decided,
erroneously in our opinion, not to rescue it but to
get rid of it while there was still time.
Two considerations must be made: transfer of a marginal
company to a financial group is not a good sign. If you
remember the plot of "Pretty Woman", and for a moment set
aside Julia Roberts' beauties and "services", you'll recall
that the male lead's job was the financial dissection of
companies, and that it was precisely a shipyard that gave
him back his taste for building up, for doing something positive.
It's precisely the pleasure craft sector that gets fond
of engine suppliers, and it can't bear betrayal: we think
that whatever the reasons for the MTU sale, whatever the
marginality of yachting related companies, it should be
kept in mind that their customers are very attached to
them, so there is an asset that ought to be added to purely
financial estimates and evaluations. To back up a marginal
company or activity when it isn't doing so well is
certainly no pleasure: but it is extremely reductive, with
regard to company management's sensitivity and abilities,
not to recognise relationships and fidelity as asset and
human related aspects.
Production Technology
We've often been invited to visit production premises or
research laboratories and we've always reported to Nautica
readers not only what we saw but also the sensations we
felt and how much these sensations might be linked to
passing judgement on a product. Our experience as
technicians and our culture of quality mean that we
recognise when things have been organised for the occasion
and when, contrarily, we have been invited to bear witness
to a routine which, with or without our presence, would
have been carried on in exactly the same way on the same day.
Of course the fact that everything is organised, clean
and perfect cannot take anything away from the technical
content of what we are shown, but in our opinion it's far
more important to see normal life on the premises or in the
laboratories we're invited to visit. We could say that
there's a fundamental difference between "being invited for
a visit" and "being admitted for a visit". We far prefer
the latter: maybe there won't be a guide to explain things
in accordance with a programme, but there will be the
spontaneity and pride of individual responses - stimulated
by an outsider's curiosity - on the work they do and the
results they achieve. Rather than the printed matter set
out on the meeting room table, with production or test
reports, we prefer a photocopy of something we have come
across there and then by chance. Rather than video
illustrations or computer presentations followed by guided
tours, we prefer an informal stroll through the premises,
accompanied by someone who can elicit direct responses from
the people involved.
We've had these informal experiences on several Volvo
Penta premises in Sweden where, as we said, we are invited
almost every year.
We had an even pleasanter and more indicative experience
at the Charleston premises of Cummins Marine where we were
left free not only to circulate but also to ask for and
receive confidential documents dealing with defects or with
engine trial rooms.
Yes, because apart from the modernity and perfection of
the production apparatus, it is in the trial rooms that
engines are put to the test, and free access to engine room
trial reports gives a competent observer the chance to
judge how work is carried out, and this puts the company on
a level of confidence and routine which does not fear
negative judgements.
In second place, regarding possibilities of judgement, we
have programmed visits, more suited to non-technicians and
demonstrating more organisational than technical abilities.
Under this heading comes the visit to the IVECO research
laboratory where we cast an eye to the future; or the
Caterpillar premises at Charleroi in Belgium to inaugurate
a European scanning of measurements and components.
Before concluding this aspect of things it should be
pointed out that while the visits to Cummins and Volvo
Penta concerned premises that manufacture marine engines,
the other visits, which were interesting and instructive,
had to do with diesels in general. On the one hand this is
more significant because it involves overall aspects, while
on the other hand we must confess that when one speaks
about marine engines one finds less formal behaviour, which
is associated with awareness of marginality but also of the
importance of the personal relationship, which becomes
confidential and direct and therefore more complete and explicit.
Engine Technology
And here we come at last to engine technology.
The identikit of a big marine engine is easily drawn:
they are usually four stroke diesels which may have two or
four valves per cylinder and indirect cooling with
exchangers or plates. The turbocompressed version flanks or
replaces the aspirated one. Cooling systems can involve
either gases compressed before supply to the cylinders
(intercooling) or exhaust gases that supply the turbine
(aftercooling). The classic configuration is the modular
one of six inline cylinders with cranks at 120°, in
one, two or three banks of a differently angled V. As is
well known, and as we have explained exhaustively on
various occasions, the six cylinder configuration is the
best balanced from a dynamic viewpoint with view to the
inertias of alternative masses and their moments with
regard to both the engine axis (first order moments) and to
the engine transversal symmetry plane (second order
moments) such as to theoretically render functioning
possible without a flywheel.
But the important newcomer in recent years is electronic
management which is increasingly gaining ground even in the
most traditional circles: the computer comes aboard with
the engine and controls its main functions through
injection piloted in such a way as to be the most suitable
for quantity and timing. The only manufacturer to continue
with traditional mechanical injection is Deutz: all the
others, some more extensively and in a more integrated
manner than others, have studied management logics that
improve performance and save fuel but above all make it
possible and easy to remain within the increasingly strict
limits to safeguard the environment from exhaust fumes and
noise. In the November 2005 number of Nautica we explained
the meaning and advantages of common rail, pointing out
that it can function only because the electronic control
unit handles delivery and imposes functioning maps adapted
to the conditions picked up in real time by the sensors.
Is all this a good or a bad thing?
For a long time we have been against on-board
electronics, convinced that it would mark the passage from
a "manual" to an "instrumental" epoch. With handling of
phenomena and adjustment passing from our senses, with non-
specific instruments, to the knowledge of complex logics
outside our generalised culture and current practice, with
specific equipment. Which in fact is what has happened.
Engine timing, an operation that even a mediocre mechanic
can carry out with the appropriate manual, becomes
complicated when you have to set it in a complex mapping
that envisages variability in function of signals that come
in real time from sensors.
On the other hand, the widespread use of portable
computers and internet connections makes both management
and adjustment possible - even breakdown repair - through
online contact with the manufacturer's specialised
technicians, so a capillary service network is superfluous
apart from good availability of spares.
There is therefore a substantial difference between the
professional use of engines for work such as fishing or
transport and the use of engines on pleasure craft. The
former, by tradition and culture, prefer the manual aspect
of intervention while the latter expect and also hope that
everything can be carried out without anything being done
by skipper or crew: if there is a computer on board, as
well as radar, SATNAV and control integration, why should
there not be engine management, not only with regard to its
functioning but also its integration in the complex
grouping of required performances (suspension of torque
when the inverter is activated, reduction to the minimum of
active cylinders etc.).
The two possibilities described apply to two schools of
pleasure craft sailing:
on the one hand those who want to be relieved of
anything that might impede their full enjoyment of time
spent at sea;
on the other hand those who think that taking away the
skipper's responsibilities and challenges, the merits and
difficulties of running the ship, will also take away his
love of going to sea
As things stand, both schools will be able to find the
engine that meets their needs.
Conclusions
It would appear that what we have said does not and could
not give precise indications to a skipper who wants to buy
a superyacht: and in fact our aim was not to give recipes
but to stimulate reflection before arriving at decisions or
assumptions which, for better or worse, may have an
antithesis which, arising from enthusiasm or advice that is
rarely disinterested - especially if not asked for - should
generally not be given much weight.
A pair of superyacht engines is no small matter: the
decision calls for careful evaluation of the pros and cons,
a series of meetings with manufacturers, a raising of your
guard, a professional type choice. You must replace the
engine brochures by dialogue with the designers and users,
if they are available. Data regarding power, torque and
consumption must be replaced by or added to more complex
formulations such as rating, continuative power, the
average time the maker guarantees between one breakdown and
another, whether the repair can be carried out on board or
if the engine has to be unshipped: these are called MTBF
(mean time between failures) and MTBO (mean time between
overhauls), and the latter must be much greater than the
former and must satisfy the user's requirements in function
of the use he intends to make of his yacht, keeping in mind
that unshipping engines is not a simple matter but may on
the contrary be envisaged as routine in reconditioning.
The skipper should furthermore draw up a scheme of how he
intends to use his yacht, envisaging range and time of use:
these forecasts may orient choice towards manufacturers
that are strongest and best established in the relevant
area. Because though it is true that on the one hand most
engines are of high quality as long as all goes well, it is
when something goes wrong - which can always happen - that
you see the manufacturer's reaction and his ability to
handle the problem: it is always preferable that he be nearby.
Don't neglect looking at the duration or response tests
that your chosen engine has passed at sea (there are
murderous tests which an engine is unlikely to pass with
flying colours if it has design or duration defects): ask
for cycles and results and study them carefully, keeping in
mind that there is a classification of companies, which is
important but not enough to guarantee product quality. Two
healthy and robust parents generally produce a healthy
child, but the child might also turn out to be weak and
sickly: certification has to concern the child and not
merely the parents who have given birth to it.
Lastly, but with great caution, trust the shipyard's
choices. Usually they have no personal interests in
suggesting something they don't believe in, especially if
it is a serious shipyard that above all is fully
responsible for everything installed on the vessel you have bought.
Full steam ahead!
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