Lots of people brag about how fast their boats are and most of the time it is light hearted banter. We have such a conversation with our friend Stig, since we chased his boat Wild Dream 2, up the Wallet when returning from Burnham on Crouch one time. We gave them a one hour head start before catching them up and it has been a joke shared ever since. It is only recently that we admitted motor-sailing 🙂
So it has often been said (by us 🙂 ) that Mariadz is a fast boat (she’s not really but don’t tell her that!). However, like a formula one car the problem with this speed is the potential for lift at the stern and therefore downforce is important if we are going to make sure that the rudder stays in the water 🙂 . Clearly the last thing you want is the stern to come out of the water when she is going really quickly! Reason number one for the work we have had done.
An alternative reason is that you have the davits at the back of the boat with your nice rib hanging from them and if the boat is your home then your rib is really the equivalent to your car. Ideally you would want your car to have a garage or car port to protect it from the elements? So Maria may have wanted a “rib port”, a little shaded area where the rib goes and is protected from the sun like a car port protecting it from UV damage. Reason number two.
You will have seen on some of larger yachts a helipad so the billionaire can get to the boat by helicopter. Now clearly Maria is not going to have these gin palaces having something she can’t have on Mariadz, so does the top of this structure have a large H on it for landing the Chinook? Reason number 3.
Mariadz is also famous for its parties and high alcohol cocktails and the aft deck is a perfect place for a little soiree. Is this the high level drinks tray so that the drinks don’t get knocked on the deck? Reason number 4.
The final alternative is that if you are cruising long term you need to be self-sufficient for power, or as close as is feasible, so you need to look at wind and/or solar power. A lot of boats create a stern arch on which solar panels can be mounted but these can look quite ugly and intrusive. We currently have davits, rated at a high weight capacity, and these are attached to the stern with a large number of heavy duty fixings. We therefore decided to fit a solar frame above the davits because of the chance that this area will be unshaded and hence give good power and it is out of the way. We are fortunate that because of the size of the boat, our davits are fairly wide apart which provides a good 
solid base for the solar and also allows us to have three large but lightweight (240W) panels which were Panasonic – HIT N Series 240W Black Solar Panel
When designing the frame, we were keen to make sure that we still had access to the boat from the stern using the passerelle. 
This would mean that we would need to have a certain amount of headroom and the frame couldn’t be mounted directly on top of the davits even if we had wanted that. Another reason it needed to be raised would have been the console on the rib which sits proud above the level of the davits. These reasons, and aesthetics meant we wanted to have something that felt balanced with the boat. We worked with East Coast Stainless on the design and came up with a design that we think works. One of the design questions was about being able to tilt the mechanism, which is more efficient for solar (and creates more downforce, returning to a previous train of thought 😉 ). However, we had concerns that this would be cumbersome, heavier and fail over time as the combination of salt water and stainless welded the tubing to itself. We had exactly this experience with a telescopic boat hook that wouldn’t budge after it 
had been immersed in the sea and left for a few months. As part of this work we lost the Neptune’s fork that used to be mounted here but we had already moved or replaced most of the aerials that were on this and we didn’t want this to still be in place and potentially shade the panels. Some of the aerials were better mounted on the mast anyway. A few were left over which are mounted on plates to the side of the panels, providing a little shading but hopefully not impacting our solar output too much. When the fork was removed the davits suddenly looked naked until the frame went on, it was strange.
Finally on the exterior, we have added some lighting to provide a “welcome” light for the swim platform, a courtesy light for the aft deck where we quite often eat in the summer and finally relocated our aft navigation light to the far side of the solar panel.
Electrically, the work was again done by Olly at Seapower bur most of the solar power work was done when we did our refit last year. We 
had looked at how the power went into the batteries and had agreed with Olly on an MPPT controller which maximises the power going into the batteries by being very clever (please tell me if I am being too technical!). It takes a high voltage as an input and then converts this to the lower voltage required by the batteries. We went with the blue solar set up which is supplied by Victron since we had other Victron equipment and this gets great reviews. It also comes with a Bluetooth communications module which will allow us to monitor the solar array in its own right. All of our on board monitoring would give us a nett effect after any load had been subtracted, unless of course we switch off everything on the boat….so the ability to check the solar in isolation is useful. But it is also useful to know whether your batteries are being charged after considering the current load as a baseline.
I will update the blog with some real world figures in differing conditions but since we will be generating our own power, we are expecting our electricity bills to also come down because of the solar array. W
ith just one panel connected up and with rain water on the panel, which impacts efficiency, we were getting 4A going into the batteries which is all electricity we don’t have to buy off the marina or fuel for the generator. Now you even get money-saving tips from Mariadz 🙂
So a few weeks later and having had the three panels giving a total of 720W fully working for a week, I can now see how well solar will work for us. During the week we changed our orientation to the pontoon, facing South rather than North but I haven’t seen any noticeable drop in yield based on this move. The other key factor is the state of charge of the batteries, clearly if they are full we will not get a fair representation of how much power was available. I have been able to ensure that the panels are in bulk charge mode most of the time by switching additional load on when necessary, mostly the immersion heater or a kettle.
One thing I have noticed is that I now think of our electrical capacity differently. We are a 24V boat with some 12V and obviously some 240V, and like the Victron I have been working on KWh since that is easy to consider irrespective of what I am looking to use. So our 880A of 12V batteries is 10KWh of battery capacity and this means we have effectively 5KWh of power available to use from the batteries before charging.
The maximum power we have had from the panels was 668W, nearly 28A at 24V and 93% of capacity. Over a full day we have had a maximum of 2.5KWh… in the UK, in September which I think is pretty good!). However, our average is 1.75KWh since we have had some cloudy and dull days. These represent the panels giving between 22% and 31% of their rated wattage each hour. All of this gives me confidence though that we have sized our array well. As we get into warmer waters, the sun is better positioned and it is brighter, I would hope that we would do better than a September’s day in the UK, possibly twice as good but that is one for the future.
This is also one of the last major projects that we need to do to the boat as preparation for the big trip, so apart from rig and sails she is close to being ready to go 🙂
We pass the two large containers unloading on the newest docks at Felixstowe, each over 1,000 feet long and we are gently motoring towards the wallet and the gunfleet windfarm. The southerly wind is in our faces but we know the turn to south west into the Wallet will give us the opportunity to get some sail up and motorsail at the very least. So a couple of hours into our journey and we are ready to get some sail up and with little wind, it’s gonna be all the sail -main, yankee and stay sail! Even against the tide we are making reasonable progress down the Wallet, which is incredibly busy giving an opportunity to get the camera out and take action pics of the boats.
awful lot of moored yachts and motorboats at Clacton. From a distance this almost looks like a pop-up Marina but as you get closer you can see there are quite big gaps between the boats. We have friends anchored off and other friends watching from the beach so hopefully they all saw us as well as the planes! 
We are on the look out for other friends amongst the anchored boats but I think they must be a sniper in camouflage since they were able to get a shot of us but I couldn’t see them. I later find that there had been more bikini-clad women waving to me, sorry to at I missed it this time. 🙂 
We keep going at a reasonable pace with the intention of getting to Osea at about 7:30pm, a little late if there is a problem anchoring or the anchorage is full but we have been here a few times and never had a problem before. As you negotiate the gap at Colne bank, you can see the Bradwell Nuclear Power Station in front of you and it is another couple of hours down the blackwater, against the tide, to get to Osea. The river is quite quiet this evening and we make good progress, still motor sailing but with the wind having shifted slightly to South Easterly giving us some assistance from the sails as we progress down the river. We go past Radio Caroline, which I didn’t realise was still broadcasting, 
one time we will have to try and get it on the radio when we go past! We arrive at Osea at the time we expected and start setting the anchor, I have remembered to attach the anchor float so that we know where the anchor is, the snubber is attached and holds the chain below the waterline which helps with keeping the anchor and boat comfortable and protects our top sides from the chain. 
Finally, the anchor ball goes up and the anchor light is on so we are ready to settle down for a quiet evening as Bradwell gentle glows in the distance behind us 😉. Having lived in Tollesbury, on the other side of the river, for six years, I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about the Bradwell glow! We are up on deck quite late enjoying the tranquility so no music for us or Maria belting out tunes! She must be tired. Maria’s actually in bed by ten but that probably isn’t a bad thing and means that she will be rested for the weekend.
The morning is magnificent, sunny and still, at least until the water skiers turn up mid morning! We decide that before everywhere gets too busy we will move to a better spot. The place we chose last night meant at low tide we were within seven metres of one of the buoys, Maria doesn’t like that so we move further down the river where it is a little shallower but with more room. The move is uneventful and we are settled back down with the float out, snubber on and anchor watch application keeping an eye on us.
Before we go we take a few pictures of Mariadz looking regal in the river. And we’re off. It’s actually quite a nice trip on a rising tide although the garmin keeps telling me this would be shallow normally, but with the tide we are fine. However, we are being very careful, as always, and stay to the channel in the centre. This is quite ridiculous as we find when we get to Maldon. Our rib, Connie, probably needs about 30cm of water, compared to the 180cm of Mariadz. 
As we arrive in Maldon, we see a lot of the Thames Barges that we see in the Orwell! Maybe I didn’t need to worry about the depth…. having lived in Tollesbury for so long and spent a couple of years driving through Maldon to get to work – I didn’t know anything about the riverside area at all and it looks really nice. My first experience is to go to the two pubs on the waterfront, having left the rib on the small 
visitors pontoon. This works well as we arrive to an empty pontoon, but soon after the world and his wife have decided to come to Maldon, so I had to keep going back to make sure that little Connie didn’t get crushed by anybody and to move her so that others could squeeze in. We all work together and by moving things around we get everyone into the pontoon. This includes some new friends on a small yacht who made contact with land a couple of metres short of the pontoon! We waited a few minutes for the tide to lift them from the mud and then could bring them into the pontoon rather than being stuck out there 🙂 
later we saw them sailing back up the blackwater “refreshed”.
We’re back in time for sunset, a lovely BBQ and some time with the cats who have missed us. Sunset is amazing with the sky turning a deep red, I promise there is no filter on the photograph. Then as we are finishing dinner, a couple of guys from an adjacent boat are pottering around in their inflatable and come to say hi, I suspect that we will be chatting more tomorrow…. especially as we can hear them laughing and joking on their boat anchored nearby!
Anyway, 30 minutes later and we are all clean and tidy. Now the real work of sunbathing and relaxing can begin. Oh and maybe a cheeky glass of wine. Our new friends in the anchorage pop up river for a sail, there isn’t any wind though 😉, and on their return we invite them onto Mariadz to properly introduce ourselves before hitting the beach later for a barbecue. For one of the crew, it is her first time on water, and she is not comfortable doing the ride to Mariadz in their inflatable. 
I offer to pop over in the rib to collect her and come back nice and slowly so as not to worry her. I throw the line back to Mariadz but the combination of my poor throw and a missed catch means that the rope is in the water. Instinctively, I reverse back so that I can retrieve the line, why did I do that! The line gets nicely wrapped around the prop of the rib and the engine stops. After switching off the ignition, I lift the engine and unwrap the line as we drift slowly down the river. Lowering the engine and restarting works fine and we can try and do a better job of it this time! We get my passenger safely on board and we can add another unique experience to our boating life. To be fair it was quite quick to resolve the issue and if it hadn’t have been, I would have been able to deploy the anchor quite quickly too while I solved it (or ended up rowing back to Mariadz…. with one oar…. against a stong tide). Let’s just be grateful that no damage was done!
The anchorage is now getting busy too but we have been here a night already so hopefully the other boats will anchor in a way that doesn’t cause us any problems. Not that is an issue for us, we like to have access to the decks and so we deploy our fenders which has the added benefit of giving the cats a way to get back on board if they did fall in. It must look strange and unnerving though when you anchor close to a boat that has their fender deployed, not much confidence in anchoring ability being demonstrated there!
We are now on a falling tide with low tide scheduled to be about 11pm but we are not worried about such things…..yet. Maria goes off “hunting for wood” but it must be hiding because she comes back with only a small twigs. It is ok though as we all go off and forage for wood for the fire and soon with some liquid help it is roaring, a little like us! 
Maria’s brought some music and a speaker, although thankfully not the full karaoke setup, so music is playing and it is a lovely evening. We are eating quite late but everyone is having a good time.
although I will admit it isn’t the best picture in the world! Maria became an excited school girl when she saw it! Really sweet as she spontaneously bursts into tears.
The hull polish went very well and is a quick job because the surface is mostly flat. She came up beautifully. The gold vinyl stripe, which we intend to change next year to a painted stripe, is looking fine despite having been in place for over four years. So we can survive another year of that without doing anything major.
we discovered that this needed very fine sanding with 400 and then 1000 wet and dry sand paper…… very gently! The dark crazing was removed and, after polishing, this area looked like new which was refreshing considering this had been a bugbear of ours for a few years.
I have been fortunate to have Pete and Linda as neighbours
for the last two years and one of the things I have noticed as they fit out the beautiful Haven Voyager is that Pete designs a lot in cardboard before making it or buying it. This gave me the inspiration to mock up the steps prior to buying any wood or hinges! I can also thank my son Matthew for drinking the cider that made this all possible.
There are basically three types of joint in the design. The outside of the box 
requires a joint that forms an L so that the top of the box is supported on all sides for stability. This means that the flush hinges need to be brought in by the width of the wood and recessed into the wood to provide a flush finish (I would now recess these differently to the picture with the larger part of the hinge being recessed but I did the first as in the picture and wanted to stay consistent at least on the inside of the box). Two of the concertina sides are joined to each side of the back using this method and the other two are joined to the top step in the same way, I used two hinges for each joint irrespective of size. Having built the U of the back and two sides and the same U shape for the front, we can join these together with the butt hinges. You now have a box with one end which is only half covered and has the front of the top step. We can now fit the top step itself, which is the top of the box, by fitting two flush hinges onto the top edge of the back on the outside and then the smaller top piece can be fixed. The larger top piece is then attached to the smaller with two butt hinges (on the inside). Our top step is taking shape. Now to avoid any unfortunate accidents it is a good idea to attach two bars on the underside of the longer part of the top step. These will stop the concertina collapsing inwards. They should be mounted a wood width from the outside edge and have at least a wood width on the outside edge at the front.
to waterproof and protect the wood, 
to stop any accidents and the boat name in gold, which isn’t too clear with the wood colour unfortunately. The final element is a weathermax bag for it to go in, and I’ll probably throw some silicon sachets in there.
In just over an hour we are tied up to a mooring buoy, the Prosseco has been broken out and the girls are starting to relax. We settle down to watch the sunset over the River Orwell as our pork chops cook in the galley. At the age of 72, Adam’s Dad has discovered Facebook. His regular posts on the recovery of Adam’s Mum from a stroke in March, help us all understand the progress and the difficulty of these long term recoveries. It is clear from his latest update that today has been a hard day and we agree to facetime him to have a face-to-face chat over the internet. Two hours later, dinner has been switched off, alcohol has been consumed and we are all still chatting but Dad is in a better place and his favourite daughter outlaw (in joke I’m afraid) is now past eating. A few more drinks and a bit more chatting and it is time for bed before we head to Osea Island the next day – I never get my own way 🙂
This is the Ross Revenge which is the boat that used to broadcast Radio Caroline in the North Sea during the Eighties. This was after the first Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo, had sunk which is remarkably similar to the story for the “The Boat That Rocked”, although apparently this is a coincidence! So a little bit of history to enjoy as you sail past. There are then a large number of moored boats before you get to the anchorage at Osea Island. We arrive shortly before 6pm, right on low water, and with only five other boats spread around the anchorage find a good spot and start to drop anchor. In one respect arriving at low water has the advantage of simplifying the calculations for the anchor chain although it does mean that we did not benefit from the tide at any stage!
although on this occasion I forget to attach the anchor ball to the anchor to help with 
location and retrieval in an emergency. Time to relax again, as the sun goes down and out comes the Prosecco and the raspberry gin – hmmm, theme developing here. Our friends are at Brightlingsea listening to music and send us a video, the singing doesn’t sound the best if we’re honest and doesn’t compare to the band we can hear on Osea Island where there must be a wedding 
or large summer party. It’s a lovely, still, warm evening as we settle down. For the second night, the fishing rods are shut firmly in their carrier and my Dad FaceTimes us and we talk for ages and Bonnie chills on deck.
Maria has taught him to do a high five for treats, he likes to practice this a lot and he has the girls wrapped around his little paw! He gets treats.
Clyde is now being a bit cheeky and trying his “come to bed” eyes on Lisa!
they are falling behind as we start to catch up with a couple of smaller boats ahead of us. We travel up the wallet passing Walton, Frinton and Clacton which all look very different from the sea.
Maria was going to be busy working so I asked Phil and the team to take Mariadz out of her berth which was done professionally and carefully. As she came out, there were quite a few barnacles and weed on her. We also checked the prop since we had quite a bit of vibration from the prop which you could hear in the aft stateroom when under power. There were a number of barnacles on the prop which could have caused the blades to not fully deploy and hence result in vibration, so the servicing of the prop is very important and something we need to check after its service. As part of the lift out service, Mariadz is pressure washed which cleans nearly everything off the hull and then she is put in her place for the next three weeks, as we move onto the motorhome.
through hull replacement and Terry and Ben get started on this first. We quickly find that the hope that we would be able to keep some through hulls or even salvage some of the existing ones. Very quickly this became a pipe dream, as the through hulls started to come out. 
Some of them were wobbling in place, some were becoming pink inside (a definite sign that they need changing) and some of the valves would not close properly which of course is a big issue if you needed to close these in an emergency. 
The replacement goes really well despite some access issues and all of the through hulls are now changed. The two in the galley which also acted as keel coolers for the refrigeration are replaced with standard large through hulls and the keel coolers are moved slightly. These are changed from the vented coils to two porous blocks, with their own anodes, that soak up the water and cool the fridges. Apparently this is a new 
design which cannot be blocked by weeds etc. so we are hopeful that our fridge and freezer issues are finally solved for the last time. Also with the removal of the temporary fan solution, the noise in the galley has also reduced. The rekeying of the coppercoat is done with a light sandpaper after I have gone round and removed the last remnants of any barnacles on the hull. The hull anode which was replaced earlier in the year was also reasonably worn, but with some life left in it, but we decided to change this at the same time. The hull had been well polished and is looking fantastic.
our berth we need to check for leaks and that the through hulls are seated correctly. Terry is on board and checks all of the through hulls. As he comes back on deck, he is pleased that out of nineteen through hulls, none of them leak. I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with the hint of surprise in his voice….only joking, they have done a fantastic, meticulous job and it is not surprising at all. We have some minor problems with the old pipes connecting to the new through hulls but these are all addressed and there is no water coming into the boat. Interestingly, we were told that when the one through hull was done earlier in the year, the boat had to be relifted because the new one leaked which makes us even happier with our decision to use Terry!
To be fair, it was pretty much the only thing that worked as it should when we got the boat 🙂
the smell was more pronounced. Oh dear, this is going to be nasty. Inspection around the holding tank showed that there was no leak, that was a relief. We also knew that the holding tank was empty since we had emptied it a few weeks ago. Over the last few years we had changed a lot of the pipes, hence the white pipes in the picture. The creamy coloured pipes are the remaining pipes but these appeared to be fine with no smell coming from them. We decide to try and trace where any gas is escaping the system by putting a fairy liquid solution across each of the pipes and around the top of the holding tank. This reveals that the “gas” is escaping from around the sender unit that shows whether the tank is full or not. It also revealed a small split in the pipe that led to the sea discharge, maybe this was enough to let the smell out? Rather than replacing the new and clean pipe we decided to put in a join and replace the split part with a new short length of pipe. This was uneventful, having heated the new pipe in a pan of hot water for a couple of minutes to ensure that the 38mm pipe went onto the 40mm fitting on the holding tank…. a snug fit! But we were not convinced that this constituted the full extent of the problem. We then decided to add some water to the tank and discovered that the tank was under pressure when I opened the pump out and heard air hissing. The setup on the Moody has two inputs from the two toilets, a deck pump out, a sea discharge and finally a breather pipe. With a breather pipe which works both ways, there should not be any pressure. This led us to do some investigation on the breather pipe to try and understand why there is pressure. Firstly we wanted to check that the breather pipe in the holding tank didn’t have a long downpipe (I.e. That the breather wasn’t connected to the pump out by mistake. Having checked which pipe was which and removed the tank inspection panel, it was time to hold your breath and open every window on the boat! That is definitely the smell…. but the pipes are the right way round – quick put it all back together again! Consulting the owner’s manual revealed where the breather pipe left the boat and it was interesting to see that this was a smaller pipe than the inch and a half pipe leaving the tank. A reducer somewhere perhaps? It also appeared that there was a join with another breather pipe…very confusing. The breather pipe goes forward and we can see it doesn’t come back at hull level, so maybe The return is high and is in the headlining? Removing fifteen screws allowed us to check that this wasn’t the case! Great now to put them all back again. But we are still confused as to how the breather is working. We decided to force air into the breather using a footpump from the tender. There was a bubbling coming from the sink! The grey water system linked to the black water system for a breather??? Surely we would get foul smells from the sinks. 
Tracing back the pipes revealed that the join in the breather pipes was from both grey water boxes and wasn’t linked to the black water breather at all. Back to the manual….and tracing the breather pipe forward behind the TV and up further forward. Check the hull to find a second breather, so the manual is incorrect and the pipe runs further forward. Ps, this breather isn’t the fuel breather which is adjacent to the fuel cap or the fresh water system breathers which are in the cockpit…
Some of these had clearly never been recessed, and so we wanted to cover these with teak plugs. I had borrowed a drill bit that was 10mm wide with an extended central point that makes the hole in the fibreglass under the teak but I was keen not to drill down too deep and was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough teak to hold the screw and allow me to cover it with a teak plug.
washing machine which is small and apparently designed for the yachting life. However, Maria wanted to see if there was a portable solution that would work on the boat, in the motorhome or in Italy before the main house was finished.
she decided on a 
. so watch this space to see how this handles our motorhome holiday to Italy and a few uses on the boat during the summer…..the answer is very well. It is slower than a normal wash because you have to manually change it from wash to spin and the load is not huge but for washing in a hot climate it seems to be a pretty good solution and got a lot of use on our recent trip to Southern Italy.
whether the 
