When well know Dive Adventure company Dive Tutakaka, needed to repower their 16m passenger vessel Calypso they sought the advice and guidance from Sean Scott-Davidson and Dereck Fortune from Marine & Industrial Rebuilds (MiR) Limited of Whangarei.
The original plan was to rebuild the existing engines and gearboxes. As is often the case with marine diesels, when the costs to bring the engines and gearboxes back to a reliable standard were closely looked at, the numbers didn’t really make sense for a commercial operation that needs reliability and low cost of operation.
Sean explains; “After careful consideration of the vessel performance requirements, ongoing operating costs, and capital outlay, the FPT engines offered by Adrian Penman from Lees Group stood out as one of the best options to present to our customer. The FPT range of engines allowed for several possibilities for the Calypso repower and Lees group supplied a comprehensive analysis of each option which gave everyone a better understanding of what to expect.”
In the end, twin N67 450hp engines de-rated to a commercial setting and mated to new ZF transmissions were deemed to be the best fit and were within the surveyed capacity of the running gear meaning costs didn’t blow out for the owners.
This project is a good example of doing the homework upfront and properly matching the engine, transmission, and propeller to a particular hull. For Calypso, this meant there were performance gains achieved while doing it with a less horsepower and reduced fuel consumption and the gains were made at a lower capital outlay for the owners- compared to the other options they looked at.
The in-house engineering capabilities of MiR and turnkey engine package supplied by Lees Group meant the installation was carried out relatively quickly and Calypso is now back on the water and ready for a busy summer taking lucky punters to the famous Poor knights Island and surrounding areas.
