Based on the company’s wide experience in the superyacht market and the reliability of its installations, the well known Turkish builder Vicem Yachts has chosen Piet Brouwer Electrotechnology as supplier for the entire electrical system onboard its superyachts. To increase comfort and efficiency as well as operational safety for engineers and to ensure that generators are always able to start, the company has installed crossover boxes onboard the 46m motor yacht Vulcan.

Crossover boxes by Piet Brouwer Electrotechnology installed onboard 46m Vicem superyacht Vulcan

In addition to the 46-metre yacht Vulcan, Vicem is also building a 35-metre Tri-deck and a 32-metre Raised Pilot House. The yachts were developed with various partners from the superyacht sector, including designer Frank Mulder and interior design studio Art-Line.

It is a familiar problem: The generator starter batteries are empty and the engineer only discovers this fact when trying to start the diesel engine. At such moments there is very little time to carry out the activities required to get the generator set started. Engineers normally therefore try to start the diesel engine involved using loose starter cables linked to the starter battery set from another diesel engine than the affected generator. To avoid having to carry out such a time consuming solution, Piet Brouwer Electrotechnology recommends installing a crossover box onboard superyachts, as project engineer Hessel Bakker explains.

“Using key switches it becomes easy to start one generator battery via another diesel engine and vice versa without requiring loose cables. Additionally, a battery monitor is connected to the battery charger and all individual batteries. Whenever a fuse or battery charger fails or batteries need replacing, an alarm goes off, warning the engineer and ensuring that he is able to start the generators and keep the onboard network working properly.”