- I gotta ask you about welds. - What about welds? - So we had a lot of
people asking us, you know like the few videos that
we had out of other boats saying like, well the welds look messy, like watch out for these welds, how do you make sure that they're good? I hope you gonna inspect these. And there was a lot of comments like this and I think a lot of
people don't understand the whole weld process so maybe you can explain it to us. Cuz I'm just saying these are not finished but I also don't quite
understand the whole process. So please in enlighten us. - It's quite simple. It's better to show on the boat. - So on our boat, perfect. - Yeah, it's your boat. It's messy. - It's messy. - Yeah. Like this, you know. - This is just bad welding. No. (Alexi, Rico and Victoria laughing) - [Rico] Great. - So what we see here, imagine your boat it's like a giant Lego,
contain more than 4,000 pieces and each piece has its own place. It's all marked. First assembly goes, I will not tell you like the technology of assembly of the boat, you know it's built upside down, then
we turn, then we connect. However, when you assemble, it's same like you know making clothes. You stitch first and then you sew. So same technology here, you're stitching. This is to hold this piece in place and the whole boat is assembled like this and then you're doing welds. However you can see perfectly here the weld's done from two sides. It's a marine rule. Nobody welding marine structures with only one sided weld. So first the boat welded from inside and then we make this bevel
with a special machine. It's burned out this bevel and we fill it up with welding material. - Does that mean someone has to crawl inside of this thing
to do this from inside? - Yes, of course.
- No way. - The boat have to be set up
that you have access to weld on the inside, each and every corner. Then the special company from Istanbul, they arrive with their equipment
and do x-ray of the boat. Usually it's done on the weekend. Nobody here, so they work with ultrasound. So same like human
body, x-ray, ultrasound. And the ultrasound and x-ray shows the cavity's internal problems, like if the weld have internal problem. Usually they check 20%
of wells with x-ray. If it's satisfactory then the whole boat
considered satisfactory. We never had problems with this because all our welders
are certified to a class, so it doesn't matter
if we build class boat or non-class boat, they
have a class certification in order to be able to work on a boat. - And if it's a class boat also a class will come and also inspect? - No. Class is inspecting
and also T doesn't inspect. If it's non-class boat, it's only our internal inspection. But again, we're buying the same steel. It's certified marine steel, class-approved welding materials
of course and machinery and class-approved welders. - All of this here, right? It's not like they gave
it to you and you did this cause that's what it looks like. You know when you and I
were learning how to weld this is what it looked like. Rico's looked better. - Yeah. You can see it also here you see where the bow thruster, it's stitched out throughout and then it will be welded from inside and then from outside. - [Rico] Same like here. - [Alexi] Yeah, same. - [Victoria] Yeah. Those
look very, very different. - [Alexi] This is the finished weld. We don't grind them. They stays like this above the water line and slightly under the water
line we cover it with fairing. On the underwater, they're exposed. We just put the bottom paint,
primer and the bottom paint, that's it. - [Rico] Class-wise,
they're doing the inspection like you mentioned. Are you doing some kind of own testing? - If it's not required by
class, if it's not a class boat, we're still inviting the same people to do the same inspection. We're just not presenting
it to the class society. - Cuz it's required by you. It's a safety of the boat. - It's required by us
and it's a good practice. I wouldn't like to put the boat out without certificate that
all welds is compliant. - The next question that we get probably the most is how does the aluminum attach to steel? I'm sure people ask you that all the time but most of the time it seems like a very educated comment as you realize somebody
doesn't know how it works. They say why it doesn't work versus saying why it does work. So can you explain to us
how does aluminum and steel are joined together successfully? - I think it's better show and your boat is best to look at. - [Rico] I'll follow you.
- Follow this. - [Rico] I'll follow you.
- Okay, Rico. (upbeat music) - It might be a little loud up there. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
(Victoria and Alexi laughing) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to our Bering 75. - [Rico] Welcome to the salon. - Yeah, welcome to the salon. Don't look so sad. It's plenty big. - [Alexi] It's enormous. I don't have that much
furniture to fill it up. - You don't?
- No. - You're gonna have to make some. - We need to make some. So here's a good example
how aluminum superstructure attached to the steel hull. So you see this bimetallic strip it's called triclad. Top is aluminum, the bottom is steel. The steel is welded to steel and aluminum welded to aluminum. The connection between aluminum and steel is they connected by blast, by explosion. So they put against each other and then it's incredible pressure
connected on atomic level. They don't have the dissimilar
metal problems anymore. They bond together and have no conflict. - So you see the color
here, this is the aluminum and then right here is the steel and this is the aluminum. Ah, that's so crazy. - [Rico] And that's all around. - [Alexi] It's all around. It's all connection
between aluminum and steel is done through this bimetallic strip. - [Rico] So even where
the beams go down also. - [Alexi] Yes. Aluminum shouldn't touch
steel because it's a pair. You will have a electrolysis right away. Doesn't matter if you weld it if you just bolt it,
it's a corrosion point. The whole industry is doing this. - Wow. Okay. Well I hope that explained it you guys. - Aluminum as you can see, also welded you can see perfect welding seams. Aluminum is a bit harder
to weld than steel because you have to
have special equipment. You have to have, again
different certification and the welding done in
neutral gas environment. The equipment eliminate
the oxygen and nitrogen and it's sort of like an
umbrella of neutral gas, argon. The welding done in this environment. And trick part is if you
out of this environment your welding seam is very fragile, it will crumble. So you have to have really
professional experienced people who welding it and it's got to be thoroughly inspected with a hammer, with a special tool so to see is it any problems with losing of this environment of this neutral gas environment. It's much more expensive to weld aluminum and of course aluminum
is much more expensive but it's two and a half times lighter. So it's reason why
everybody's doing steel hull, aluminum superstructure to have a good, well balanced boat with pre-set stability. Majority of our weight like
right now, this structure, the superstructure probably like 12 tons and the rest is about 60. So basically your boat, your steel hull, the center of gravity is really low. - [Rico] If you would take the hull without engine, without
tanks, without anything, could you put it in the water
and it would float upright? - Two Bering 80
just towed from from Istanbul. No balance, no nothing, just.... - Wait. The pictures on
this, they came by water. - By water of course. - They towed them? - They towed. The boat is stable. - I thought they were like
delivered and put there cuz you didn't have any space. - No.
- No way. - No. They were two tug
boats brought them down. - [Victoria] Wow.
- [Alexi] Yeah. - [Rico] Can we insert the picture? - [Victoria] Yeah, we have a photo. - [Alexi] Yeah, we have photo, we have video, everything. - [Victoria] So this answers
the comment comment as well, which says, "oh you guys, your
boat is way too top heavy. It will go pht" because it's balanced perfectly. - No. It's scary looking because normal draft of
Bering 80 is 2.4 meters empty, empty like it
came, it's 1.4 meters. - [Rico] Oh wow. - [Alexi] So the whole
boat is out of the water, but it's extremely
stable. Extremely stable. - It obviously made it
here getting tugged. - [Rico] That is pretty weird. - That is weird to be that high up. Are these also getting finished
or this stays like this? - No, no. It stays like this. - Why is that? - It's certain rules.
It's very strict rules. If you will look, this
is how frame's welded. It's to minimize the fire distortion because when you weld in through,
it's a lot of distortion. The short welds here
they service the purpose and it's enough. Yeah. (upbeat music) - [Rico] We can also show it here maybe one more time,
it's a different example. - [Alexi] Yeah, it's a good example. You see it's point of attachments here too and then it'll be welded
through very thorough. on both sides - [Rico] They're two different metals, we have the steel on the
bottom, aluminum on the top. I still don't understand
how this explosion and molecule level binding
works, but apparently it does. - Apparently it works. - Yeah, it's just
different way to connect. They basically bond together. They press so hard against each other that on atomic level they connected. - They're joined together. - [Rico] That's crazy. - Welcome to the galley. This giant window is our day head. - And galley is sitting right here. I'm standing at the stove right now. - That's where you belong. - Here's the stove. - [Victoria] It's a black
thing with buttons on it. - Yeah, right it gets hot. - You see the distortion. - [Victoria] Yes. - [Rico] Yeah. Why is that?
- [Victoria] So what happens? - [Alexi] Yeah, you have to heat it up and straighten it up. You see this long weld
when they were welding, this thing is start to deform. - [Rico] Because aluminum is a very, very good heat conductor. - For example, if you have a torch and you put it against the
steel, we have it on our video. So the steel just get
heated up and never melt. Aluminum will melt. It will not burn, it will melt. - [Victoria] I know I saw you experiment. If I'm allowed to share I would love to put it in this video. - [Alexi] Yeah, you're welcome to share. We heat up steel with the same condition, same torch, same temperature. The steel sustain over
a minute of exposure to a temperature of a thousand degrees. Aluminum melt and burn a hole through, but it didn't burn. And of course fiberglass
ignited in a split second and start to make toxic fumes and burn. I mean violently burn. - [Victoria] It just spark like crazy. - [Alexi] I mean it start
to burn and generate heat. We have to took the torch out. Ten second was enough of exposure. Aluminum started to, but you will see it. It's all calculated. (upbeat music) I want to show you how we
weld stainless to mild steel. (upbeat music) Yes, yes. Perfect. Perfect - [Rico] Perfect. - Oh, oh yeah, that's right. - Here's another important detail. We're doing it on each and every boat. As you can see, here's your mooring stuff and everything surrounding the
mooring is stainless steel. It's 3/16 stainless, which is
welded to mild and it's okay. If you have this seam exposed
and introduced to the water it's gonna be a problem. Again, it's a pair, not as
aggressive as aluminum and steel but it's still a pair. And this weld eventually
will give you a rust problems and it will deteriorate
faster than both of them. So in order to prevent it we weld it and then we
cover it with a fairing So it's completely encapsulated and there is no elements
comes to this seam. However, anything attached to here will never give you a brown thing because it's stainless to stainless. It's stainless bollard or
it's stainless capstan. - So you just encapsulate it and it's okay once it's encapsulated. - And every stanchion, like
if it's a railing here, this stanchion, it's also have a square plate so we bolting stainless
stanchion to stainless pad. So no stainless touch the aluminum unless it's encapsulated under multiple layers of epoxy surfaces. - That was really fun and educational. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you guys have any
ideas for future videos of some tech geek discussions that you would like us
to touch on with Alexei, put it down in the comments and your comment might
just be an inspiration for our next video and we'll give you
credit for the question. Bye. (upbeat music)
