The moment of truth, as Excalibur is turned round.
The hull has been designed to save fuel, while being incredibly strong.
Our team prepare the spreaders which will be used to lift Excalibur.
Alan is joined by some of the crew to celebrate the successful operation.
A delighted Alan Priddy.
The day is covered by the BBC, local radio and The News.
With the flybridge on, the next job is to fit the special windows.
Team Britannia’s superboat all turned round for final fit out
Team Britannia’s innovative 80ft vessel, Excalibur has been lifted and turned round today, which will allow work on the final stages of the fit out to get underway.
The pain staking operation started with the removal of the temporary building that was fitted to the boat hall two years ago to allow the Aluminum Boatbuilding Company (ABC) to accommodate the superboat.
Then the 20 tonne boat was lifted, turned 180 degrees and slid back into place. This will allow work to continue finishing off the vessel and commissioning the boat’s two FPT engines and jets that will power it on the 42,000-kilometer record attempt.
The lifting operation on (Hayling Island) started at 7am with the installation of the flybridge, with the innovative superboat finally emerging from the boat hall just after 2pm. After moving the boat away from the shore the crane carefully swung Excalibur around, before carefully sliding her back into place.
The addition of the flybridge, allows the specially designed windows, which are capable of withstanding a hundred tonnes of water to be fitted. Once watertight, a team of electricians will get to work installing the miles of cabling that will control the Raymarine communications and navigations equipment, monitor the engines and connect the vast array of censors that will evaluate everything from oil temperature to the NOx levels from the exhausts.
The whole operation was overseen by ocean racing legend and Team Britannia’s skipper Alan Priddy. “We have waited a long time for this day, but now everyone can finally see Excalibur in all her glory,” he said.
“You can see why the construction superboat has taken so long. The attention to detail, quality of the welding and thousands of hours of skilled work that have gone into the construction and will help the team to break the round the world record are clear. ABC, have done an amazing job and now just are just a few weeks away from finishing.”
Dr Priddy concluded: “We have also reach a major milestone with the addition of the flybridge. This means that the vessel’s superstructure is largely complete. We can now finish off the welding, fit the special windows and get Excalibur ready for the water. The final job will be to wrap this unique cutting edge vessel.”
ENDS