550 - Hull 2 - What I would do differently if I were building a new one

For the sake of future owners, I’m going to describe things that were done on our boat, that I would do differently. I’m just going to post separate replies for each item.

Some of the trampoline slides that were provided have plastic slugs, and the attachment point has square edges. The plastic slug is failing, and the square edges are chafing the line.

To fix this, I purchased 7/16" Stainless Steel Round Base Slides (part VSRS7Slv) from Sunrise Yacht Products, which are solid 316 SS, and the attachment points are round SS. These just arrived today, and are solid.

The gap between the diamond non-skid and the edge of the top step is around 90mm. All of the other steps have 25mm. This makes for a very slippery spot, right by the stairs. I slipped on this the other day while washing the boat, and got quite the bruise on my butt. I’ll spare you the photo of that! :rofl:

The diesel filler tube extends a long way into the tank. When you use a pump with a large filler nozzle, the nozzle can’t go very far into the tank, as the handle hits the hatch ceiling. As a result, you have to squeeze the handle just partway to keep the fuel from splashing back big-time. You have to use a rag, as some still splashes out. Your hand also gets quite tired of squeezing the handle!

I would suggest that the diesel filler tube be cut shorter so that the nozzle can go in deeper or maybe they can move it so it can drop into the tank.

mount the water overflow on the top of the tank. You lose about 6 cm or 9% of the capacity of the tank by mounting it where it is.

Engine starter battery switches should be port/stbd/both, not just port/stbd.

All locker hatches need better sealing to prevent water ingress

The channel in the longeron that the anchor chain runs through is too narrow. It needs to be widened by 50-100mm to allow reasonable access to install a chain hook. We use the Mantus M3 chain hook, which is an absolute beast, and you can get it on, but just barely. Guys with big hands have a hard problem getting their hands in there.

The DB (distribution board) needs a complete redesign, Write to me to discuss.

Our B&G Precision-9 compass is located too close the the batteries and which causes interference. I’m going to try moving it forward by about 1/2 of a meter, but I’m not sure that will be sufficient. It probably needs to be located somewhere far from the batteries, and I’m not quite sure where that would be to conform with the recommended placement.

Make sure that there are sufficient spare circuit breakers for future expansion,

If you go with the standard Victron electrical system, it shows an optional trickle charger for the starter batteries. This is not optional! There are parasitic draws on the starter batteries which will drain the batteries. Make sure you get this option.

KYC used BEP Marine ultrasonic tank senders to measure water/fuel/waste tank levels. These are garbage as the data that they return has so much noise in them that it’s almost useless. I will be replacing these at some point. I would like to go with an N2K directly connected device, so that it can be read by anything connected to the N2K bus, but I haven’t decided on a vendor yet.

I would appreciate feedback from anyone on this.

Have KYC run an N2K cable into each lazerette so that you can easily get data from there. My rudder position sensor (RPS) failed and I found that it connected somewhere up by the helm and was impossible to pull the cable. I had to cut the cable and install an N2K field connector on the cable in order to install a new RPS. This would also facilitate the use of N2K based liquid sensors.

I have had to replace a significant number of my lines due to chaffing. The Southern Ropes lines that SparCraft provides are junk, In Grenada, I was talking to a South African rigger who stated that he had to replace a large number of lines coming from South Africa, yet he didn’t have that same issue with European boats.

I would have Dynema Dave, at the waterfront, make up my lines instead of SparCraft.

SparCraft. I have lots of issues with SparCraft’s work, but one thing that has really pissed me off, was having fittings loosen up that were either installed without thread locker, or they used silicon instead of thread locker!

I don’t know what you can do about this, but pressure needs to be put on them to do better quality control.

Rub rails: I highly recommend them, but not the ones that they used, which are made by Tessilmare. The curved SS rail is hollow and mounts on a soft rubber base. The problem with this is that when the boat gets hauled, the straps compress the rubber base and bend the rail. If you get pushed up a piling, the rail dents or bends.