| Kleven | 107M | "Andromeda" ex. "Ulysses" | 2015/17 |

I recall seeing those boats in the Pacific and later in the Aleutians, they were beautiful boats, superbly built and finished.

She is easy on the eyes.

[Link deleted]

Hi,
The poster probably wont admit that unless he offers a blatant plug of his own skills and worth to any project.

The problems with the actual materials used are well known in the industry today.

There would be very few mega yachts launched in the last 10 yrs where there was 100% satisfaction with the overall finish and appearance.

There have been many DOI problems particularly on darker colours and white ones have not escaped as there have been problems where the finish looked great a few days after application but had yellowed and gone almost transparent in places by delivery a few months later.

The problems are not all confined to the top coats the filler has also gone through several re mixes al of which seem to have their own share of issues.

I know the vessel the photo above was of, there were patches onboard that looked a whole lot worse than what is shown in that photo.

This yacht and her two sisters are definitely not among the best examples, this yard has delivered in the past. And this not only for the less than ideal appearance of of her / their hull(s).

IMHO, their external and internal internal layout and even more their internal design were at least a little bit questionable.

But as we all know, this yard can do far better and sometimes even industry leaders can be limited in performance, when forced by the customer (Due to timeframe, budget and most of all personal taste).

And it should be noted, that in most northern European yards, the complete fairing and painting process of newbuilds is done by subcontractors, mostly by companies and their workforce from Southern Europe. Inhouse paintjobs or local subcontractors would be far to expensive and those companies would have a lot of trouble finding able specialists in the local area, willing to do this very hard and inconvenient work. I know of some larger yachts, were this part of the completion process was excluded from the contract and / or the warranty and concidered owner supplied item.

I remember the good old days, when fairing material and paint was of great quality and long lasting but just a little bit more poisonous .

And I know from personal experience, a dark blue, high gloss, perfectly faired and painted hull on a larger (steel or alloy) yacht (with frames and stringers) is a very tough task for any yard with the present chemistry. Just by mentioning the wanted hull colour in the owner briefing, the frame distance was already reduced by the yard.

But car and aircraft builders have the same problems with this water based stuff. By saving the enviroment and the health of our crews and workforce, our ships, boats, planes and cars wont last that long anymore.

One of the highly regarded American builders of large yachts that has had few if any paint or fairing issues started using the precision mechanized fairing mixer machine as soon as it was available.

Years later I still witness hand mixing and the results are probably as consistent as the mixing proportions. This fairing and painting process has to be the most scary part of building a yacht.

Fairing and painting of such large surfaces with a long lasting high gloss effect is a really difficult task. Sunrays and the enviroment of southern lattitudes will make that job even more difficult. Those surfaces need a lot of permanent care.

Achieving always perfect results is not easy, as one can see in these pictures, I took in 2010 at a yard in Northern Germany.

Thanks for the input HTM09..despite all discouraging news from the chemistry side of the paints,and "the risks" with fairing works, I believe we still owe to the owners right workmanship, at least we have to strive for that.And it is doable as we see it happening on a number of large volume yacht paintjobs.

For me being on the application side the motto is " What we cant compomise is quality.." A combination of reasonable budget, time, and team work( skilfull applicator,good control by paint consultant and Yard conditions,and achievable paint standards expectation) will open the way for a right paintjob, and happy owner.

Hi,

I would be interested to know who these wonderfully finished yachts are being turned out by.

Hi K1W1,

Dont you believe at all that there are paintjobs finished on the right quality?

From the number of arguments I am aware of in build and at delivery and poor jobs I have seen with my own eyes where substantial discounts are sought and often granted I would say again very few mega yachts get done to a 100% acceptable state, there is always some sort of haggling and trade off.

If you have some secret to success I would say you are sitting on a veritable gold mine as it seems to be one of the most elusive thing in the business today.

Im well aware of those arguments too, and they are wide spread indeed!

You acknowledge that" there are only a few paintjobs delivered 100% with acceptable standards", meaning it is achievable!The thing is we have to do our job correctly and responsibly.Given that we do our part correctly and yet the result is not acceptable then it is another story.To me the key is to put aside finger pointing, anymore..does it sounds too optimistic?

Hi,

I have worked on projects in various yards where they all use the same subbie to do the filling,fairing and painting.

Trying to get anyone else involved is very difficult indeed.

No matter how tight and well written and supervised the spec is there are still problems often with the cheap labour used to get this rather dirty and monotonous job done while still allowing for a good profit for the contractor.

insisting on same applicator is used by a number of Yards. Well Understandable in terms of logistics, paper works etc, but on the other hand relying too much on one applicator solely may lead to such examples of poor paintjobs, as it is quite probable for this subcontractor to not feel the "threat of competition" on the next quotes in such an environment.One serious issue in the Newbuilds..

Healthy competition will definetely help.

Video of the launch:

https://vimeo.com/104808019

Perhaps owners are asking for too much. They're looking for a yacht finish on a ship...... a 100 meter Mega Yacht may really be a yacht, but at that size it really is a ship and should for all intensive purposes have a ship like finish (unfaired, paint type etc.). Now to try to get an automotive quality finish on something of that scale, and based on how painting has to be applied (sprayed and you're literally relying on a dozen painters to all be of the same quality and skill), it's darn near impossible to get the entire job right, add to that the difficulty of spraying dark and/or metallic colors and FORGET IT. White is a LOT more forgiving than anything else. You almost have to be a magician, or the builder has to design the boat with good break points (a rubrail on the entire hull that creates a good break point for the painter for example to paint it in levels).

It's almost like, should a classic Trumphy have no seems on the hull?

She really is.

GOLDEN SHADOW - IMO 1005136 - Callsign ZCBA3 - ShipSpotting.com - Ship Photos and Ship Tracker

Perhaps the owners are asking for too much.. Indeed they do, but on the other hand they pay for that too much..

This means it is well "deserved" by them to ask or "expect" too much.

If , as you say,there is something considered as magical to be succeeded ( finishing level on 100m vessel)then this should be openly discussed and explained to owners.

She floats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9wqIMr7KUU&feature=player_embedded