Silver

05.07.2007 - 31.04.2008

m/y Silver
Chief Officer/ Relief Captain (Running deck dept)

After having been dismissed from Titan due to the sale to new Owner's I was again on the look for new horizons and the Chief stewardess from Titan had a lead from a Swedish Captain in her network and put me in touch with him. After a bit of talking and interviewing I was accepted as Chief officer and soon enough was on my way to Australia.

Silver before launch (courtesy of Boatworld)

I arrived Fremantle in July so the weather was a bit muggy as the last bits of winter was still hanging on in the southern hemisphere. I was put up in a room in a house together with the Captain and Hotel Manager, a Swiss chap. We all had our rooms and a communal kitchen, basically it was a big standalone house. Quite fancy as well as it had an elevator in it.

Silver off Fremantle during setrials (unknown photographer)

Next was again to get familiar with the newbuild, it was a first from a new yard just founded, called Silvermarine and the boats name was Silver. She was very sleek at 73m LOA and looked like massive speedboat. During seatrials she came up to 30kts+ which was quite good for that size of vessel as can be seen from the picture above. She was fully made of aluminium, including the wall cladding and panels which was new to me and quite interesting. The bridge windows because of their angle were very thick and had to Class requirements be able to take a wave on deck, the manufacturers had issues getting the glass so perfect that there was no distortion when looking through it.

The management was YCO and the paperwork had to be dealt with to get the SMS shipspecific. Then followed the arduous tasks of commissioning and taking the systems into use and load all the gear onboard (loads of lose equipment for different configurations on the exterior). The biggest problem became storage of where all these bits and pieces were going to live. 

Silver (courtesy of Boatworld)

We eventually managed to store everything but it was not very ergonomic to lug table panes weighing in excess of 50kg from bow to stern and vice versa for a dinner setup. Me and my big mouth did voice this aspect to the yard but it wasn't received very constructively as I got told to wind my neck in. Always difficult when the client and yardowner is the same person, can't win. It wasn't also popular to mention the crewcabins that were the size of pigeon holes and the messroom had a pillar in the middle, they would not pass MLC inspection these days. 

We were put alongside a field where they had previously done sandblasting so it was full of metal particles and when we had had a few days strong winds from shore to sea we had been covered with this dust and soon enough brown speckles started appearing everywhere on the ship despite it being made of aluminium. The painters had to work overtime to repaint and buff the paintwork again, luckily we didn't have polyurethane based coating so it could be polished.

Then it was time to satisfy the Authorities and we had Class and Flag onboard to do inspections and to witness how e.g. the rescue boat launching and recovery works. It was a bit tricky to get the rescue boat in the water as it under a hatch and then lowered with a crane that was inside the hatch, one for sb side and another port, 2 arms. We exercised with the deckboys for a weekend to get the operation smooth and pat on. On Monday we had seatrials and were doing 5knots launching the rescueboat, it all went off like clockwork and the Flag surveyor Ken Appleby was satisfied.

Silver (courtesy of Boatworld)

Next came the maintenance part of it, we loaded up stuff from local hardware shop Bunnings different tools and materials that might be needed in the operation. Meanwhile the Swiss Hotel Manager planned his housekeeping and had some funny ideas that ended to him being let go. The crew complement  had not been thought out very well as I was running the deck department with 2 deckhands only and a mate. Needless to say we were quite shorthanded even if I gave a hand whenever I could from the admin.

Eventually we went for a shakedown cruise with the owners to Monkey Mia and had onboard various guests coming to see the newcomer into the yachting world with new designs and a new brand. The tenderboats proved to be a bit of a disaster, they were untested and a product of in-house design so with little seas the guests were absolutely soaked in seawater. 

The tenders had massive diesel engines and a single screw so there was a lot of torque and it was easy to fuel them up fro the ships fuel tanks but the limitation came from the height of the tenderbay that had been placed forward and was a "new" idea. Getting the boats in we only had a few centimeters to spare so they had been maxed for the space. 

Silver (courtesy of Boatworld)

Eventually upon getting back to Fremantle they had trim tabs installed and the engine top rev's capped at the yard in order to perform better. It helped a bit but unfortunately the design was what it was. As we were returning we experienced quite large swells in the open seas from Monkey Mia and took a greenie on deck that filled up the well where the anchor winches were and the mass of the water bent the forward bulkhead to the tenderbay. 

At same time we had some water ingress there and it disabled our emergency genset. Our Captain got a bit upset so after a day we were back in the yard we disseminated the incidents on the return trip and yard got into action of dealing with the problems. The bulkhead was bent back and strengthened with additional stringers that would take more load (from seas). Meanwhile the captain went on a couple of weeks leave and resigned from there. I was taking the reins with the yard for remaining time putting her into condition to be handed over (from left hand to right?) and we also got a new French Captain to captain her (sic).

We finally left for Singapore as our first stop, I remember passing the Christmas Islands and the Indonesian archipelago, also the equator was passed but alas in the middle of the night so we did not have any ceremonies. In Singapore we docked in Raffles near the Tuas checkpoint for bunkers and provisions. We had just time to go ashore and then we continued our trip to Malaysia and Phuket, the owners embarked there for some fun and soon enough we continued to Maldives.

 

As we cruise in Maldives, I forgot in which atoll, but anchored in 25-30m depth and was about to heave up anchor to continue to our next destination and as we heave up the chain only the chain comes to surface, the anchor is missing. We quickly drop the other anchor, bridge records the position from our old anchor position and we prepare to dive. The owner says to continue but we insist to try find it. Eventually after some 1-2h of scanning the sea bottom we spot the anchor. We prepare a mooring line with a shackle and pull up the runaway anchor and reattach it to the chain with a spare kenter shackle we had onboard and then continue our trip. Few thousand saved there as well as the hassle with class, lead times and other issues.

We stayed in Maldives for the rest of the season and it got a bit boring waking up in paradise every day. Eventually all crew was given staggered time off to travel somewhere. As I was close to Sri Lanka I took a week there going around the island, it was very impressive and enjoyable. I also then had the mishap of cutting my finger badly on the rescue boat and had to take some time off in Goa to get it operated back together at a local hospital.

At this time I also got confirmed that he owners had no plans for rotation so I saw no chance to advance further. I got offered the position as Captain on m/y Kalizma so I resigned and made my move onwards and upwards. Eventually Silver was sold a bit later and is still today based in UAE under the name of Rabdan probably the best place for a boat like that.

Specifications according to Boatworld:

Silver 

Length overall 240.5 ft / 73.3 m

Waterline Length 113.8 ft / 34.7 m
Beam 32.8 ft / 10.0 m
Draft 8.2 ft / 2.5 m
Displacement 600 t

Hull: aluminium semi-displacement

Builder: Hanseatic Marine of Australia in 2008

Designer: Espen Oeino. 

Capacity 12 yacht charter guests and 16 crew (berths for 18 guests)

Cruise speed of 18 knots and a top speed of 25 knots.
Power 2x 16V-4000 MTU engines, 2465 kW at 2000 rpm

Range 4500nm at 18 knots
Classification Lloyds register: Maltese Cross 100A1, SSC Yacht (P) Mono G6 Maltese Cross LMC SOLAS up to 35 passengers