It is unbelievable that we are already in the middle of April and there hasn’t been a single good day for sailing! Normally we would have had a few, potentially chilly, eeekends by now. I remember from when I played a lot of cricket you would always get some unseasonal warm days early in the season, normally just before a May was rained off completely though.
In previous years we have gone a reasonable distance too especially at Easter, maybe to Ramsgate or across the channel. Going to France is more tricky now because then the cats couldn’t come.
So, at last, our sailing season has started even though it is really late this year. The weather for this weekend was meant to be cool with a very light Southerly wind so not much to get excited about sailing-wise but a great opportunity to get out, check the boat is working well and have some chill time. So we decided to head down river and anchor in the River Stour that is the border between Essex and Suffolk,
We were hoping to get away early on a Friday but unfortunately I arrived back too late from work so we couldn’t sail down to Harwich to see off our friends Lars and Laura on Sweet Dream, a beautiful Island Packet, as they set off to Norway before starting a trip round the world in January 2019. However, there is more than one way to skin a cat………, sorry Clyde! Since we hadn’t had the opportunity to properly say farewell, we decided to drive to Harwich and meet them for their last supper before they left at the Alma. 
The Alma is a lovely pub that sells very fresh lobster and beautiful cuts of beef, all listed on a blackboard, when it’s gone, it’s gone! The food as always was really nice. We had a cracking evening chatting which was capped off beautifully with a quick dance to a live band – Lars and Laura know how to make an exit. The obligatory exchange of a few presents including our crew t-shirts for our friends. In the picture is their very own “Anne Plummer”, she’s a very popular artist, don’t you know!
After a good nights rest, we decide to be up early to get our chores done prior to going out on the boat. We have refilled with water and fuel as well as running all of our pre-trip checks. One of the jobs since it was our first trip of the year was to go around all of the blocks lubricating them. Last year we noticed that there was a lot of power required to bring in the head and staysail. This year I have lubricated everything I can reach including all of the guides for the furling line that runs it from the bow to the stern. Let’s see if that helps. So Mariadz is well lubricated, no change there, and we are ready to go. We have timed going through the lock just before high tide which means that we can go through the lock without stopping, with permission of course and only on the green light.
The engine hasn’t had a proper run for six months or so and is slightly smokey, we will need to keep an eye on it but I suspect that this just needs a good run.
At last, after six months of confinement to Ipswich, we are out and heading down the river and it is a pleasant daynot much wind but nice to be out.
The trip down the Orwell is uneventful and we make the turn into the Stour. Now what little wind we have is right on the beam and so we decide to get all of the sails out to check that they are ok. Everything comes out fine but we are against the tide with little wind and so keep the engine running to ensure we can make a sensible pace. Of course the key will be how they go away and whether I need to use all my strength!
The cats are incredibly comfortable and also grateful that we have got them such comfortable new seating in the cockpit. This of course means that the two seating areas that we had set up seem to be feline spots.
It does amaze us though how comfortable the cats are on the boat. No matter what the conditions, they seem happy and relaxed. When it is bad they stay quite close to us for reassurance but when it is a nice day like today they stretch lazily and chill. We have a number of friends who have commented that they don’t necessarily believe in reincarnation but if they did, 
and could choose, they would like to return as Maria’s cat – spoilt isn’t the word!
After an hour of motor sailing, we are approaching our anchorage at Holbrook on the North side of the river under the watchful eye of the magnificent Royal Hospital School. It is time to get the sails away so fingers crossed. The smaller staysail flies back in with relatively little effort but the real test will be the much larger headsail. The difference lubrication makes is amazing, the sails go back quite easily.
So the sails are away and we can now think about anchoring. Maria selects the spot as I am forward preparing the anchor, anchor float, snubber line and the anchor ball. The anchor float that tells us where the anchor is located is fixed with its ten metre line to the anchor itself. This has the added advantage of acting as a trip line if the anchor gets fouled. Maria is pretty much ready so I decide to ease the anchor off it’s stowage using the wired remote. Nothing, not even a click of a solenoid. Hmmm. I know I have flicked the switch on for the windlass down on the electricity panel -that is normally what I have done wrong when something doesn’t work! I immediately go back to Maria and explain the situation and also to check the anchor controls at the steering position – let’s at least try and isolate the problem. The issue I have here is that when we got the boat, as mentioned previously, pretty much everything needed fixing….. except the windlass that brings the anchor chain in. That had been replaced at great expense just before we got her! So with some trepidation I press the button on the steering column and the windlass springs to life and the anchor starts to deploy. Huge sigh of relief, it’s “only” a remote that I need to replace! However, we like to deploy the anchor in stages so I need to be back on the bow while we do this. We quickly agree some obvious hand signals for up, down and stop. I think Maria has some hand signals of her own planned too!
It is quite high tide and we are in a nice spot with about seven metres of water so we will be perfectly safe even when the tide is out. We start deploying the heavy rocna anchor and our the chain in ten metre increments letting the boat settle after each one. This helps with getting the anchor set and also stops piling a lot of chain on top of itself is a cone or on top of the anchor. Despite it not expecting to be windy, we deploy thirty metres of chain so we can be confident that Mariadz is going nowhere. As we get to thirty metres I put a hook attached to the middle of our snubber line through a link of the chain and tie it off on both bow cleats. This takes any pressure off the windlass hopefully meaning we won’t have to replace it in the future! It also balances the load across both bow cleats and means that the anchor chain doesn’t rub against the hull as we get pulled around the anchor. Lots of great reasons to do that then. Letting a little more chain takes the tension off the windlass. I can then tie, three further snubbers onto the chain which can take the pressure even if the hook falls off the chain. Probably a little too much redundancy but you just get into the habit. 
The final job is to raise the anchor ball that tells everyone during the day that we are anchored. This is attached half way up a spinnaker line run down to the deck, we hoist it about ten feet up so that it is easily seen. Obviously at night the anchor light at the top of the mast is illuminated so that people know where we are. These signs usually work very well and people know where you are and keep clear. Unless of course they are a blue hulled scouts boat, in which case you need to switch on the spreader spotlights and everything else you have got before they hit you!
Mariadz is settled nicely, there is a very light breeze and a gentle soothing movement of the boat, it’s mid afternoon. 
We decide to stay up in the cockpit as Maria prepares the feast of fish which is our lunch and dinner, or so we thought. As you can see from the picture, Maria has a little furry friend. Now Clyde is rather partial to prawns and demands them as an almost daily treat. When Maria brought the platter up, Clyde stirred. Ah, treat time and wow what a great selection. What shall I have first mummy? Maria of course obliges and starts feeding him lobster. LOBSTER! Is there another word that is more than spoilt… hmm a very lucky cat.
Anyway, let’s just talk about the weather…..when the weather is good on a yacht, there is no better place. In the winter we are cooped up down below catching up on films and box sets. In the summer, the TV is rarely on and we sit up in the cockpit listening to music. This is the first time that we have had the opportunity to use the cockpit properly with the cushions that James has made us, one word – excellent.
So the music is playing as we chat.
Today is the day of the grand national though and the one day a year when Maria likes to gamble – except for the lottery and the annual trip to the casino. We choose roughly nautical and lifestyle names for the horses and we have our four. Last year Maria won so she is relaxed and confident. Obviously our interest in the race is over by the first circuit and as the winner wins by a small margin, Maria announces that she was going to choose that one….that’ll be my fault then!
It’s getting to the end of the day and we have been anchored for over six hours, usually at this stage the electrics, such as the fridge and freezer, have started to take a toll on the batteries but not tonight. With our new solar power set up our batteries are at 100% as the sun goes down – we like that!
The sun is going down and as we look down the river we see lister Light with the young Thompson family on board. yeah that ones for you Sally 🙂 you owe us. 
So our neighbours who are 250 metres away from us in Ipswich are the same distance from us in the stour. But wow doesn’t their boat look great in that light.
While the Thompson’s have their own great evening, we are settled down listening to music. It’s a lovely evening with a variety of music and we go to bed at a reasonable time. Of course with Maria that is any time before 4am – but it was early even by these standards!
It’s not an early start, which gives an idea of how late the previous night was, but as we get up we find that there is a thick fog with 50-100 metres visibility. So we will need to put the fog lights on and continue to drive at 70+ miles an hour! Not quite.
A very thick fog means it is a day for AIS and radar. AIS is great, it tells you the course and speed of larger ships, whilst also telling you how close how close they will get to you. We have an AIS transponder so we are sharing the same information with everyone else, if they are looking out for it, going through a major port it does gives some reassurance that we are suddenlyWe leave it till noon to go so that there is a chance to burn off and it does seem to clear.
Until we get to Felixstowe. Pea souper. Fifty metres visibility with no idea what big ships are moving. Radar is helping and ais is also sounding but the hardest is finding the buoys so that we know where we are – thankfully we know this area quite well.
But of course this could be about to to get much worse in the Orwell where the vessels aren’t very big with no AIS transponder or a big radar shadow. This is going to be very stressful. But as we move away the fog lifts and we now have a few hundred metres of visibility before it lifts again and we can see up to a mile. Stress over.
The return journey is all under power and the engine is a lot happier now, not much smoke for a start. Mariadz has a split exhaust which means we still get people frantically trying to stop us at the dock because of the lack of water coming out of the exhaust. It does help when we motorsail too when people are amazed at how fast a larger yacht can go with so little wind. 🙂
We come up the river and arrive at the lock gates. While we wait for the water levels to equalise, we meet a couple with a new to them boat who will be staying at Ipswich. We recommend b pontoon – best, beautiful and boozy! All the “B”s.
Coming in and Maria has everything under control. I have set up dual lines on the bow prior to entering the lock so I have swapped over the mid line, the first line we generally get ashore. Linda our very helpful neighbour comes over to give us a hand and takes the mid line for me and I glance aft to notice that the stern cleat is bare, I haven’t moved that line. What a wally! I’m sure there would have been panic in our first few years of sailing but I tell Maria the situation, not that she can do anything about it and quickly swap the line over. Lasso the cleat from th deck of Mariadz and we are back where we should have been.
We get into our routine of adjusting lines and getting the power on and we are all tied up adjacent to our steps. The other boat we have just seen has been put on b pontoon and so we give them a hand before settling down for food.
The weather has brightened up noticeably and so it must be bbq time. 
Obviously that changes the weather and of course it starts to rain but not before I get the rail mount fitted and the bbq fitted. Really convenient, now if only the food would cook quicker!
So a weekend away and as is common on a boat, a list of maintenance jobs: stereo needs replacing, the usb charger in saloon has stopped working and the remote for windlass. Ah sailing life, going to beautiful places to fix your boat!
The design exercise was quite complex since we knew how the area was likely to be used. Just looking at the access areas for the cockpit made that clear. We have two side entrances and also access at the aft end of the cockpit. During the winter, most people come in via the aft entrance. We were keen to make sure that people didn’t stand on the seating, irrespective of the entrance and so a number of folding sections were incorporated so that these could be lifted to provide a step and to stop the cushions being spoilt. These folds were two at the aft area of the cockpit and one on each side. James incorporated a nice way of fixing these with Velcro underneath the seat and a flap which meant that the join was very strong and invisible when the seat was setup – much better than two cushions butted up to each other with Velcro on the edges. This works for all four entrances into the cockpit.
When I say “our”, I do mean Maria, Bonnie, Clyde and myself, since the cats like to be on deck when we sail. This area has full backs to make it comfortable but these were a real headache to get right with the curve of the cockpit and the shape of the back that cushions need to rest against. All other areas have a selection of loose cushions, in a couple of contrasting colours, that can be used for the backs. This gives flexibility and also means that when Maria sits behind the wheel steering with her feet, she is surrounded by comfy cushions.
Sometimes she is brilliant and other times not quite at the top of her game. In the early days of our relationship, I probably didn’t go into this wholehearted. There was some recognition that I wasn’t the best singer! But now I give it my best shot, and I apologise for any bleeding ears brought on by my enthusiasm.
– one of the few that I could find that had a wireless microphone and a wireless base station. You need this if the diva is going to be able to do her dance moves although she would probably prefer the whole Madonna headset!
– something to hold the iPad with the lyrics on
which the iPad can link to and remove a trip hazard
In our first few weeks of ownership, we found the small round table that spins out in the lounge area was failing. This is made from a very poor plywood which has several screws into it. Within a few days, these screws were wobbling and within a week the table was broken. We fixed this by using copious superglue in the screw holes. This seems to help bind the ply better and by putting the screws in when it is still tacky, a solid grip is provided for the screw. In the two and a half years since, we have not had an issue with the table, although we had to do the same thing to the bracket that attaches the table foot to the seating. Again this seems to have held up well.
sofas in the lounge. We selected the optional travel seats in the lounge and so have an L-shaped sofa. It means the legs of the table do not fit in the space without removing seats, very poor design. It does work well outside though! However, on Mariadz we have a teak table that we use either in the cockpit or the aft deck. This fits perfectly and also fits in the storage 
area at the back of the van. The only thing we need to do is move the locking bar that stops the table coming out when you are travelling or at the very least but something to heavy to block it.
we still had a cello 32in 12v TV in a box and rather than buying a new TV decided to fit this in the bedroom, it is a bit big but means you do get the full cinema experience in the bedroom 🙂 we also often use a bose soundlink to provide the sound since the TV sound is quite poor.
Fortunately, Fiat have the answer, there is a blanking plate (part number 1355707080) you can fit on the outside of the van replacing the ventilation and it stops the draft! You just have to remember to remove the panel that is there and put the blanking plate in the hole rather than treating it as a lid to the existing vent. 
Bit of personal experience for you there. The alternative and low tech option is to cover the vent with tape to stop the valve opening!
This screen also provides insulation for the windscreen which can be a major loss of heat, although with the sun screens on the inside we find it better. The picture shows this fitted when we are buried in snow.
Now I have to say that my first thought on this was that it was a woman that we met in a Colchester night club, that I needed Maria to protect me from! But no, apparently, it is from Siberia, freezing cold and dumps a load of rubbish on you. So completely different then!
We often get asked how we survive winters on the boat, surely we get cold! The answer has always been that we have heating, however, this winter is sorely testing our heating setup.
Reverse cycle air conditioning isn’t the most efficient system either and I suspect the fact that the water in the marina is frozen in places is not helping. So we use a combination of a couple of air con units boosted from time to time by the Dyson heater. The other useful item for our comfort is the heated blanket on our bed which has individual controls for each side. This goes on early evening, makes the bed warm for bedtime and keeps it lovely and warm all night.
we’re accustomed to a bit of snow and the few inches we got in the first few days was less than the light snow we had just before leaving Austria. In Austria, that didn’t take much effort to clear but in the UK the story is very different. Fortunately we have the land cruiser to drive around but the roads are terrible around the marina and in Ipswich itself. The pontoons will of course get more treacherous as the snow melts and refreezes overnight. Our snow boots will be tested then.
We had spoken to Lindsay at Seapower about this some time ago and there was concern that we may need to replace the entire throttle control with a completely new and very different unit. The first job though was to check that we didn’t have issues with the throttle cable and particularly the gear cable that allows you to select between forward, neutral and astern. This was one of the jobs arranged for while we were away skiing in Austria. On our return from holiday, Maria was planning to turn the boat around so she was bows-to the pontoon. This is our preferred wat round and gives her a nice view over the stern to Ipswich Centre. It provided us an opportunity to test the new setup. After the work was done, there was a complete lack of swearing when Maria was turning the boat around so I think we have a result!
To avoid this problem, we took the decision to buy a generator with a lower power output (7kW) so that we were always using a high proportion of its capacity. In the few instances where we need more than this for a very short period, the inverter charger could pull from the batteries but this was likely to be for seconds and so wouldn’t impact the batteries too much.
This has been in place exactly two years and had around 70 hours of use so a little worrying. Of course a broken impeller is not good news and we are grateful that the generator hadn’t overheated because of the lack of water flowing through the system. We are now investigating what has happened but I understand that we may need to be more careful at checking the generator when it hasn’t been used for a little while. I suspect more frequent changes of impeller will be required too.
So we have had a fantastic ski holiday. Maria has gone from being a little apprehensive because of her boots to loving every minute. She is now desperate to get back on the slopes.
The staff are back in their big snow ploughs and are clearing up the six inches of overnight snow and one of the snow ploughs blocks our path – I vaguely remember a similar scene at the start of the Italian Job and that didn’t end too well for the sports car. Today we’re all playing nicely though with the snow plough moving out of the way so that we can leave. The snow chains have been left on the front tyres from when we arrived so we have good grip as we proceed downhill through the tight little roads to get back to the exit. 
Knowing that the roads are excellent once you get out of the resort we decide to stop early to remove the snow tyres. This isn’t as mad as it sounds because the motorhome is fitted with snow tyres which have been fine until the conditions get a little extreme. As expected the roads are excellent as we head through the villages and back down the mountain to the motorway and being a Friday the traffic is light.
Maria and the cats have woken up but Maria is paying the penalty as she has to sit there with two cats on her lap since they both want their mum. You may wonder why Maria, in the picture, has a large pillow on her lap and a cushion underneath it. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the cats like to spread out and Clyde in particular is a big cat, he needs the pillow to give him enough space. The cushion helps to keep the edge of the pillow up so that he doesn’t fall off the front, definitely something he would do. The pillow also provides protection from Bonnie’s claws. She likes to pad on her mum’s legs and she has claws like needles. Sometimes, Maria forgets the pillow and I am reminded when there are several gentle screams as Bonnie gets herself comfortable. I usually have to stop the van to get the pillow for her because Maria doesn’t stop after a few minutes but just continues to do it.
There is not a single van in the site, is it closed? At least it is secluded 🙂 it is now getting late and we are going to be leaving reasonably early. So we are staying but we are not going to risk going axle deep in the mud. So I stop on the hard standing in a quiet spot and we start to get dinner ready.
The motorhome needs two parking spaces and still slightly overhangs and of course you need more space to swing the back out to turn out of the space. For this reason I normally park quite a way from everyone. I used to do this when we had a Lotus Elise so that people didn’t park close and ding the doors. Whenever I returned to the car, it was like an island of cars with the Elise in the middle. I guess people just wanted to look. Unfortunately, it seems the motorhome is the same and despite having parked with eight spaces around me, I return to find cars on all sides. This should be interesting.
The rules for cats are very different to dogs at immigration as long as their rabies is up to date. The process is very simple. Surprisingly, there aren’t many cats travelling back to the UK so Bonnie and Clyde are normally quite popular with the staff. Another advantage of going to the pet check in is that sometimes, when there is a queue, you actually bypass it quite effectively but today, despite there being cancellations, the queues aren’t too bad. The cancellations mean that we can’t get on a very early train though, despite arriving at a good time, so we will be waiting a little while. Oh well we tried.
So our overnight load is not great, even with the fridges and everything else running we shouldn’t take more than 10% of the total capacity or 20% of the available capacity running throughout the night. I get up in the morning to find our battery monitoring reporting 0% capacity! Have I inadvertently left something on? I check everything and there are no problems. Running the generator during the day gets the batteries back up but it seems very strange.
Ollie from Seapower usually does our electrical work and unfortunately with me and Maria working hard at the moment, we can’t afford the delays while we sort this out ourselves. We just need it done and can’t wait for me to get back late from work, reorder, wait and then fit. Ollie comes on board and wires us a temporary solution while the plug is being delivered and also checks the batteries.
Also the weather has closed the links from Fieberbrunn to the other parts of the ski circus so we would be limited to local skiing anyway. We’re up late in the morning and Maria agrees to go into town again to get some shopping for the next couple of weeks. So it’s another walk and we arrive at lunchtime, the town is closed again! But at least the supermarkets are open. Of course we can’t get too much shopping because we have to carry it back, but at least there is a bus that drops us off back at the ski lifts just above the camp site. So two days in and we haven’t done any skiing yet but that doesn’t stop “skiing injuries”. In places the town is very icy and Maria’s all weather boots are not as gripy as they could be, she slips over four times over the two days and bangs her knees quite hard. So we haven’t even started and Maria is injured already. We’re worried that Maria is going to struggle to “bend zee knees” as she used to hear regularly from her ski instructors. Of course a way around this is to apply some kind of ice pack. Or lay in the snow. Or do a snow angel in the snow…
Unfortunately, I still have to do a little work and I am on a few calls with our main software suppliers and the execs from the Trust where I am working. That doesn’t take too long and a little effort now means I can relax for the rest of the holiday.
In fact she does several runs, hardly adjusting the boots at all. Best of all, is that with the weight loss, Maria is more than comfortable to bend down and adjust her own boots, not the easiest job sometimes. It means I am not on my hands and knees at the top of every lift.
We know exercises you can do to get the quads sorted but in our experience there is nothing you can do about painful feet. So day three and we decided to ski over to Hinterglemm. The lift we get up takes us past the camp and we can see the motorhome nestled in looking up at us.
Maria is enjoying herself as we take the last lift up to the bubble lifts to return home. It’s been a good day and the boots are working exactly as you would want. But it has been a much harder ski and Maria can feel it in her legs.
Then we look at the decor….there is a painting behind the bed, two naked people talking the talk of love, there are statues of naked women…you get the idea! No? On our little tour of the room, the lady shows us the TV with DVD player. There are two DVDs, the history of skiing, available in German and English. Alternatively, there is a dodgy shoe-fetish porn video! No prizes for guessing which was in the machine :). But if I’m honest, I didn’t know that Mathias Zdarsky first skied in Austria in the early 20th century…. or that some guys find stiletto heels sexier than quite attractive young ladies!
On this day, we have agreed to meet a friend of ours from the marina, Grahame. He is skiing with some friends and with Maria’s new found energy and pain-free skiing, she is keen to do more. We’re back off to Hinterglemm where we meet up with Grahame and friends before having a ski around the area. We intend to stop for lunch but time is ticking on and it is after 2:30pm when we eventually stop. 
We’re about to order food but just as discretion is the better part of valour, we decide that cowardice is the better part of discretion and get the lift back to the returning bubble lifts. We’re not sure how long it will take to get to the lift and food may just make us miss the last lift! Needless to say we get there quickly and leave with 40 minutes to spare.
4am to catch his flight. Anyone who knows Matt will realise how difficult that must have been! But it is one of his loves and so sacrifices have to be made. After a few runs it’s a relatively quiet evening because we have big plans for the next day.
But before all of that, Matt and I decide to clear the remains of the snow from around the van as preparation for our departure at the back end of the week and to avoid the icy path around the van from becoming a death trap. I borrow a large snow shovel to start moving the snow and Matt sets about the icy parts with various tools. It takes quite a while to clear all of that snow from around the van but at the end we feel accomplished and have done a good job. It certainly prepares us for the spa experience.
Some people have asked what do we do with the cats when we go skiing. Well, while the mice are away, the cats will play and we generally get back to two tired out cats with all their toys strewn all over the van. When we return, we always let them out and Clyde is keen to explore his surroundings but 
Bonnie isn’t one to go out in the cold and will pop out but within seconds returns to the warm. Clyde likes it outside so much that quite often we need to walk around the site calling his name to get him to come home. And five minutes later he will be moaning to go out again. During the day the cats are actually very settled, they have their spots in the van and they like being near us when we get home so everyone’s happy.
However, Snowflake, as Clyde has now been termed, is loving the snow and getting covered. He just doesn’t care.
bought some cheap and cheerful directors’ chairs with Mariadz on the backs. These are lightly made and don’t stand up to much punishment, or time, particularly. In fact we have gone through a few sets of these as they have fallen apart. Being a bit of a hoarder, I have generally salvaged what I can from the broken chairs to use as spares for future chairs. However we always decided that, before we go, we would splash out on some well made, sturdy chairs that will last. Unfortunately these cost nearly ten times as much! So that expenditure hadn’t been prioritised….
We knew what we wanted and so went to the London Boat Show earlier this year with the intent of finding these chairs. We rarely do to this show any more because there is hardly anything there, preferring the Southampton boat show, but we were in luck and stumbled across their store. The boat show price was good and we were also able to get Mariadz embroidered on the backs in gold, I’m assuming real gold. These chairs are built from harder wood which is thicker, feel sturdy and good quality and are light years ahead of the old chairs. The cushions are very comfortable although we also had other options on these which Maria had to think long and hard about. It means that we spent More than an hour choosing exactly what we wanted, and this also included having to find our friend Dan to give us another opinion! When you consider that we knew exactly what we wanted before we arrived, this sounds even more ridiculous. They are now in pride of place in the saloon. This has presented me with a couple of problems: Maria now looks at the upholstery in the saloon and wants to change it to match the colour of the seats and they are so nice I am loath to put them into the lazzerette for fear of damaging them. Now I need something to protect them! Maybe another bag….
