Creative Thinking

Sometimes a customer comes to us with an unusual problem for which there is no straightforward solution.  A good example was the Dutch owner of an Elegange 64 motor cruiser, who had discovered that he couldn’t get into his home mooring at high tide because the radar arch was too high to get under a low bridge.

The answer was to build a hydraulic system that folded the arch flat – a job that would test our engineers and fabricators’ ingenuity to the full.  After careful weight and stress calculations had been mapped out, Osmotech cut off the radar arch at an oblique angle and then made stainless steel hinges to re-join the two pieces.  To lift the arch’s considerable weight, hydraulic steering rams from large outboard motors were chosen both for their strength despite their small size, and for their smooth, reliable operation.

Using a crane for support, the arch was then re-attached, the GRP seamlessly melded to the hinges, rams fixed in place and the navigation equipment invisibly re-wired.  This James Bond-like device is controlled either from a water-proof switch on the fly-bridge or an unobtrusive one by the helm and we only hope that the owner doesn’t forget to use it……