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Old 04-29-2021, 10:12 PM   #313
twistedtree
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City: Vermont
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 10,092
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hippocampus View Post
You have a amazing vessel and great attitude towards its birth and delivery. Truly inspiring at all levels. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, but I have to say it can be pretty trying some days, and I have had a tantrum or two along the way.


We are now on attempt #4 to order the correct engine room vent damper. One of the originals was installed with the louvers oriented vertically, and it turns out you can't do that unless the damper has been ordered with thrust waters to provide a bearing surface in that orientation. So a second one was ordered with thrust waters. It shows up, mostly fits the same way, but not exactly, then we notice that it's galvanized, not stainless. Crap, time for try #3. Damper #3 arrives today, it stainless, has thrust washers, but has a completely different mounting surround and flange. So now we are working on try #4.


Then there are the Lewmar overhead hatches. Four of them to be exact. All four had been leaking when the boat arrived back in December. They were adjusted, tightened, etc, but all four kept leaking. I then learn that this is par for the course, with people saying things like "every Lewmar hatch that has come in over the past 3 years has leaked." Spread across a couple of buildings, there is a bone pile of probably 50 or more Lewmar hatches that have been replaced.


Various people have developed repair techniques using different sealants, different seal materials, and different prep techniques. Sometimes they work, but not every time, hence the bone pile. After three or four attempts to fix them, I have one of my tantrums and ask that the hatches be replace completely.


After a bunch of silly screw ups, new hatches finally arrive and are installed. Great, should solve the problem, right? Nope. Within a week all four are leaking. So now I have a bigger tantrum. I proclaim that the only good Lewmar hatch is a Manship hatch, and ask that they all be changed to Manship hatches.


Hell starts getting raise with Lewmar, and I get forwarded a note about how they had a problem and fixed it and all is well now and we should just replace the hatches again. I say I'll accept that only if I hear a VERY compelling root cause analysis of the problem, and corrective action that 100% explains everything I've seen. Otherwise it's just guessing and I'm done being part of the experiment. After all, nobody from Lewmar has even examined the bone pile of 50+ hatches, let along done a failure analysis. Not one a single hatch.


So I get on the phone with the head of Lewmar in the US. He explains a glass bonding process issue they had and how they fixed it. When was this found? Early 2020. When was the process change implemented? ~Q2 2020. OK, but then why are my four new hatches leaking if the problem has been fixed? We had some old stock in the US. But these hatches came direct from the UK where they are built because there was no stock available in the US? I'll have to check into that.



That afternoon we ordered the Manship hatches, they arrived within about a week, and are all installed with no leaks.


You just can't make this stuff up.
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