550 Sedan Bridge is now ours

Hello Everyone,
Happy New Year to all and may GOD Bless you with twice the fun filled boating hours you are allotted to. I had some unfinished work and we didn't get to leave for Grenada until 18th December 2011 which reduced our stay from 21 to 14 days,,,BUT<<< it was a blast, the friends we made in Grenada over our past visits never allowed us to have a dull moment, we were at the the beach (and beach bar) almost every day, we were invited to dinners at our friends houses just about every night, we lit up the boat on 30th and invited everyone who showed us such great hospitality aboard for a 3 hour sunset dinner LIME (a gathering, hanging out, an unofficial party) and drinks which started at 5:00pm and eventually ended after 10pm. The original plan was to do a sunset cruise but the north swell that hits the Caribbean during the winter months was up and the most comfortable place to be was tied up alongside in the exotic Port Louis marina which work out just fine for some of our landlubber guest and for me as I could really mingle and enjoy the moment not having the responsibility of being in command of the vessel. Everyone had a great time, and our Sea Ray 55 (Tall Order) was indeed one of the stars of the evening.

So great was the vacation that I never opened the engine room hatches to do my usual "digging up" (as my family calls it). On New Years day we invited one friend out and braved the fairly rough seas, the North swell and gusting winds for a short fishing trip which yielded one barracuda before returning ashore for a 2pm suckling roast at a restaurant with half of it's deck perched halfway over the end of a beautiful surfer's beach and the other half nestled within and partly under the adjoining cliffs weathered by the force of the said North swell.

Almost tearful goodbyes filled the morning of January 2nd as we departed for journey South to Trinidad, the realities of school and a new business year which were both starting the following day now became priority, and even when Pat asked if we shouldn't delay our departure for a couple days as the current weather conditions were quite rough, I knew that we had to go, both the swell and the winds were out of an arc from the North to the North-East and by the following day the arc would shift to the East and remain there for quite some time.

The decision to leave as planned was a good one, and even though the going was pretty rough the forces were mostly from behind us, the boat rose to the occasion and at the planned 1750-1775 RPM we arrived into the 1st Boca entrance to Trinidad in just 5 hours, which was 30 minutes ahead of ETA thereby cutting short our usual 5 1/2 hour journey to just 5 hours.

At this point I must say special hello to Gofirstclass and family with my sister-ship. I must let you know that I hauled out Tall Order this week to have the bottom repainted. The underside is still in great condition and even though the most of the anodes had 70% or more remaining I just can't see myself launching her with a newly painted bottom and old anodes, so I'm changing all out. Please take note that I also changed out the through hull 3/8" bolts on the rudders. All of the bolts on the starboard were stainless steel while those on the port were copper. On the starboard side, the bolt to which the wire of the bonding system is attached was the only bolt that was in fairly good condition, the other three were very corroded and basically fell apart as the spanner was turned, I replaced all eight (4 port & 4 starboard) with stainless steel from a local marine shop. Should they be all copper or all steel? I'm not sure but I'll have to find out. Also, I think that the new SS bolts were 306 grade and I'm not sure if they should actually be 316 grade. I post this item firstly so that you may check the integrity of your own bolts as they appear to be fine until an attempt is made to remove them, and also that I may get some feedback on which are the correct bolts.

With the boat out of the water I found the propellers to be the same brand as yours but a different size with the following markings.
PORT: HY TORQ 27L25.5 L-CUP NI..................
STARBOARD HY TORQ 27R25.5
I forgot to check the markings on the props in the lazarrette but would do so tomorrow.
I CONTACTED SEA RAY FOR THE BUILD SHEET.....THEY SAID THAT THEY HAD TO REQUEST INFO FOR OUR MODEL FROM OFFSITE (PRE-DIGITAL I GUESS) E-MAIL CONTACT WAS ESTABLISHED (fgoddard@searay.com) SINCE 9TH DECEMBER 2010.........I'M STILL AWAITING THE FEEDBACK


Gofirstclass noted where the temps should be, but I'm way over those figures, at a sustained 1775-1800 RPM I'm up around 190-192 degrees. Over the last year, as part of my continuous upgrading and maintenance I've installed new exhaust elbows, changed all salt water circulating hoses, I've cleaned the salt water cores of the heat exchangers (which had marine growth blockages and diameter reduction in about 15 to 25% of the cores) and the salt water cores of the oil coolers (it should be noted that the latter had quite a bit of shell fragments and appears to be the easiest blockage point of the system). I clean the intake air filters regularly. The impellers were changed 18 months ago and recent visual inspections prove them to be in good condition. I'm now pondering if there are fresh water thermostats in the block that may need to be changed out?

Thanks to everyone and happy boating.
 
Hi Rick (flarepoman), I live in Trinidad and cruise the other islands every chance we (my family) get, we just returned from Grenada 2 weeks ago and GOD willing we already have plans for another 5 day run to Grenada in March, a 2 week run up to St Barts, Martinique & Guadeloupe over the Easter holidays and to spend the entire summer cruising around the islands and sand-spits just north of Venezuela all the way to Aruba, Bonaire & Curacao before returning home.
TALL ORDER CATS
 
Tall Order Cats, Thanks for sharing the tales of your journeys with your boat. It sounds like you're getting a lot of use and pleasure out of your baby. That is what the boating lifestyle is all about. At least some of the difference in the operating temps might be due to the water temps. I'm guessing yours is a lot warmer than what we have here. The Columbia, even in August, doesn't get much higher than 65 degrees. B-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R. Compared to the Caribbean water temps that's gotta account for at least some of the difference. Our temp gauges never did get up to 190 even after running the boat all day like we did on the way home.

Just out of curiosity, when you're running at 1750-1775, what speed are you running at? We went out this past week for a short cruise and here's what 1750 looks like on Beachcomber. 1750 eqates to around 22-23 knots.
2011-01-13_15-23-12_218.jpg


On the subject of checking and replacing anodes, when my boat got to Portland, OR they pulled both shafts to have them checked and trued. At that time they changed all anodes and used SS hardware to put them on.

Paul, you are sooooooo right. Both of the human babies have been out on the fiberglass baby and both go directly to sleep when they get on board. My kids were brought up on boats and it's my goal to make sure my grandkids get the same joys.
 
Comment and question for you 550 Sedan brothers . . . .

GoFirstClass . . . What a great looking Yacht you have. I too like the straight lines.

TallOrderCats . . . Thanks for jumping in and sharing you journeys. My question for you is what is the derivation of "LIME"?
 
Hello HIFI & everyone,
Please forgive me for not being very consistent, my business keeps me travelling quite a bit and the moment I get some free time we hop on Tall Order for some R&R. "LIME" I guess it's from the popular citrus fruit which puts a cool spin on a sunny day....but I'm not 100% sure as "LIMING has been part of the Trinidad & Caribbean was of life way before my 48+ years on the planet. But once your work is completed it's a good way to spend an afternoon, a day, a weekend or a lifetime with friends in the islands.

I just got back from a 5 day run up to Grenada over the Easter weekend, this run was to serve as a low (hull) speed trial for our planned run to the dutch ABC islands this summer, but my wife insisted that we just get there so we did it at our usual cruise. Guess we'll try another short trip at trolling speed so that we could come up with some consumption figures for that trip as we don't plan any mainland stops in Venezuela as our insurance has many limitations to the coverage around there which is usually a good indicator to keep clear for obvious reasons.

I've suffered some sooting on the last run and it appears that the engines are starving for air since I installed new engine room filters. ??? I will try to correct the problem this week.

On the positive side, we went trolling a few weekends ago and had a blast! My 16 year old daughter held the record for the largest fish caught on Tall Order (a 45 pounder), with our rods screaming out a triple header my 15 year son was first to land his fish a 50lb Wahoo but held the record for under 2 minutes when my daughter retained her crown by landing a 60 pounder, I also landed a 50 pounder and on a double header later we caught a 35 and a 40 pounder to join an earlier triple headed that yielded 3 Jack Carvalie each over 20 pounds. With the easter weekend just day away we gave large slabs of fish to every one we could think, the fish was enjoyed by all as part of their traditional Easter feast.

May GOD BLESS you all with many happy hours on the water.
Tall Order Cats
 
Hello Gofirstclass & Joe,
Sea Ray finally got the build sheet to me and I now have a heap of info,
The props that I currently run are the same brand as yours but they are 27 X 25.5
Sea Ray said that they tested the boat with 27 X 27s (These are the props which are in the lazarette) they said my layout should do 31-35 mph.
The layout on Tall Order is the Sport Fish version which should be heavier than yours as it has a 700gal fuel capacity, an after station and a dinette in place of the lower pilot house which may be the reason the original prop is smaller and the boat is slower than yours.
My guess is that the boat was faster but somewhat overloaded with the 27 X 27s by the time all personal gear was added so the same diameter lower pitch props were installed.
I hauled the boat this January and repainted the bottom. Below is my performance with a perfect bottom the day I launched:

Maximum RPM attained was 2025
RPM 2025 @ 24.1kt and temps @199*
RPM 1825 @ 20.6kt and temps @195*
RPM 1800 @ 19.2kt and temps @195*
RPM 1775 @ 17.6kt and temps @190*
RPM 1750 @ 16.4kt and temps @190*

I recently found out that these engines are set to work at higher temps (180-195*) for improved fuel efficiency. I recently removed the thermostat housing on one engine expecting to find a basic truck type thermostat with the intension to check the operating degree which is usually scribed on the thermostat. However there isn't a basic thermostat under the cover, but there seams to be a more complexed device visible further back in the space. The parts manual isn't much help but I've read articles which indicate that the device may be a temp control regulator? ANY INFO ON THIS WOULD HELP.

BACK TO THE PROPS!
Could it be that the change of props (which may have been done to reduce the load on the engine) reduced the pitch by too high a factor and probably should have decreased the diameter a bit and maintain some of the pitch for speed?

Could I reduce the diameter on the 27 X 27 to 26 X 27 or 25.5 X 27 thereby reducing engine load and engine temperature but maintaining higher forward motion in the 1750-1800rpm range or would this just increase the slippage factor and cause cavitation damage.

I'm still working toward 195* at WOT over a 10 minute burst and I really want to confirm the no t-start or temp regulator issue as we enjoy long hours of trolling at low engine speeds and I would like to ensure that the engine is achieving the correct working temps for this speed, but after reading that these CAT engines are designed to run at temps up to 210* and could operate at up to 220* in special conditions with highly pressurized water systems I'm still concerned about the temps but not frantic as I never really run them above 195*

Thanks for all the help to date and I look forward to a healthy exchange of ideas on this forum.
GOD BLESS & Happy fishing to those who drag a line and inanimate objects thinking that they can fool a fish to take a BITE........>///.> ~-------[_____/
TALL ORDER CATS
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,182
Messages
1,428,092
Members
61,090
Latest member
Kenovk
Back
Top