We have struggled for the last few years with issues with both the fridge and freezer on Mariadz. The problem is made worse due to the fire damage, and poor quality repair, that happened before our ownership of the boat. The galley area has not been refitted with a view to maintenance and access to the freezer and the fridge mechanics is “difficult” to say the least. As part of the attempts to fix this we have had to cut out parts of the units in the galley area. This allowed us to change the couplings which are a common failure resulting in loss of gas. However, it is still a problem and after our last “emergency” lift-out, it seems that the water cooling has also stopped working. This would normally mean we would lift-out to check the hull part of the cooling system but at a cost of over £400 for a lift out, we are keen to leave this if possible.

We are having to bite the bullet and come up with a better long term strategy for resolving the issue or we will be haunted with these problems for the rest of our lives. The first step is to perform a pressurisation test to try and see where the leak is located. By excluding parts of the system, such as the compressor, we can ensure that the rest of the pipework for the freezer (and fridge) are working as expected. If this proves that the pipework is in working order then we will change the compressor for a new one with air-cooling then when we come out in the summer for some other work, we can resolve the issues with the water cooling system. Fingers crossed this means that we will have finally solved the refrigeration problem!

One of the issues with an older boat is that when things fail they need to be replaced and trying to find a like for like replacement can be difficult. This is particularly apparent with lights and switches or pretty soon the boat starts to look like a mish-mash of switches. We found this when we needed to add some switches into the stateroom and a double switch into the forepeak with our recent lighting changes. This was relatively easy with the double switch from the state room being moved and two new matching switches being fitted.

However, there have been a number of issues with the old downlighter lights which have springs to hold them in place. A number of these springs had broken in the past and electrical tape had been used to jam them in place. I discovered this when I changed all of the halogen bulbs to LED. With over twenty lights on the boat, this significantly reduced the electrical draw of the lights which could drain the batteries quite quickly if a lot were on. I wanted to find something that was as similar as possible to the existing light fitting and after scouring the internet and various chandleries came up with the Aquafax Arisaig as a halogen replacement from aquafax which I could order through fox’s chandlery in Ipswich.  I could then fit my 24V LED replacement bulbs.  By replacing all of the lights in our stateroom, I freed up enough spares to replace the faulty lights in other parts of the boat. We now have working lights everywhere which don’t fall out of the headlining and the new ones look pretty good too.  Maria seems to like them too….

It’s that time of year again and time to work out what to get the girl who has everything she wants…or more precisely if she wants something, she goes out and gets it!

When we replaced the TV in the saloon, we moved the TV that was there into the bedroom which means maria gets to watch the omelette challenge on Saturday kitchen in bed. Unfortunately, the remote control on the old TV didn’t fully work and none of the universal controllers work with it so the TV has to be switched off on the box itself.

Now the boat may be quite large, but from my side of the bed it is one step to do this. If the cats have taken up residence and have me pinned down, it is a maximum of six steps for Maria to get there. However, this was considered unsatisfactory by her ladyship.

Therefore the valentine’s present was an upgraded TV, and by upgraded I mean one with a working remote! This is because I do not see the harm in one or even six steps so therefore this is a Maria focused present. 🙂

There are a number of options:
· Go for a small TV, which would normally have a transformer to reduce 240V AC to 12V DC, cut the transformer out and wire it into a 12V supply.
· Go for something slightly larger and plug it into the 240V circuit, since the inverter will provide the power from the batteries (not particularly efficient since you are converting 12V DC to 240V AC to 12V DC again!)
· Buy a cheap 12V/24V TV from a little known manufacturer (or even the smaller equivalent of the Cello that we have in the saloon)
· Go for a 12V/24V TV designed for use on-the-move (much more expensive option)

No prizes for guessing which way we went and I’m sure there are people who would have gone with a different decision. Our decision process was driven by the experience we have had with the motorhome which came with an Avtex TV fitted. The Avtex L218DRS 21.5-Inch Widescreen 1080p Full HD Super Slim LED TV with Freeview HD comes with a DVD, freeview HD tuning and satellite tuning (the later not quite as useful for us on a moving boat!). We decided to go for a similar size to the old TV but the new technology meant it was smaller overall and a lot slimmer. Since this TV supports 24V, which is the main voltage on Mariadz, it meant no need for any voltage adjustments. I was even able to do all of the wiring in to the existing setup. The alternative would have been to spend a lot less money on a TV that may only last a few years (assuming quality is meant to last longer!) and would then need replacing, if we chose to do so, when we were on our travels, which would have been more expensive and would reinforce the old adage of “buy cheap, buy twice”.

We have had a few months without any major works on the boat so I should expect something to be needed….but it has to be one of the worst jobs on the boat, and is apparently classified as “blue” job by Maria….

When we first got the boat, the first thing we had to do was to refresh all of the toilet pipes because they were blocked. A few years later and we knew it was getting to the time when we would have to service everything. Unfortunately we decided this and then the fun and games happened.

Firstly the main toilet stopped emptying….oh dear. So we went to shut off the seacock so that we could do the required maintenance. Nothing…. The handle wouldn’t budge. We are due to come out in August to have some work done but there was no way that we could survive living aboard with no toilet for six months. So an emergency lift and hold was organised so that we could change the through hull and then get to work on the toilet. On inspection it seemed that the pipes were blocked with calcium and, erm, solids… not quite sure how these hadn’t been flushed away but it had jammed the diverter valve (that allows you to switch between tanks and outside. We decided that the safest recourse was to fully change the pipes and diverter valve although I decided to refurbish the diverter valve, by cleaning it up and keeping it as a spare.

That all worked fine for about a week before the pump that brings water to the toilet was pumping very little water. This pump comes with a filter, which I hadn’t cleaned previously (looking sheepish!), it was a mess. Cleaning this up worked a treat. However, then there was a leak from the filter unit. A quick visit to a shop to buy a new o-ring (50p! – cheapest thing I have ever bought for the boat) and now we are back to new 🙂

Boat jobs seem to go that way though. A blockage in the toilet has required us to do a lift out, change a through hull and valve, change all of the pipework, a new diverter valve and clean/maintain the pump filter. Always the way!

Winter is coming and unfortunately we are still both having to work for a living so that we can fulfil our dreams in a few years time. That means that we are now getting up in the dark (and the cold 😦 ) to get to work, well at least so Maria can get to work – I am working locally but being a gent get up at the same time to drive her to the station when she needs it.

As part of her getting ready for work, Maria needs to dry her hair and put make up on, which is not best put on in the dark. Clearly the Moody 54 wasn’t designed with this requirement in mind and lighting is dim to say the least.  So as part of her interim requirements to live on the boat prior to our journeys, Maria needed some decent lights in the aft stateroom. These have now been fitted and I think it resembles a make up table in a theatre, but it is much better. It also has the added advantage that if “someone” is still in bed beyond when they shouldn’t be, it is possible to put enough lights on in the aft cabin to overcome their reticence to get up. At the moment, I have been the only recipient of this particular treatment 😉 .

At the same time, we had some new “mood” lighting added to the forepeak cabin for when our guests say. We stole this idea from the only other Moody 54 we have ever been on when she visited Ipswich.  These lights are LED and adjustable.  This means they can easily act as background lighting or the main lighting as required. This shows how much more considerate to our guests Maria is than I.  I would never have got this done, thinking they have lights in there and it’s not as if they will need the lights on for long but I have to admit that they do look good.

The engine saga continues but as Lindsey at Seapower told us, it is lots of small steps that get us closer to the goal and improves the engine.

We started this process a little while ago by adding sensible lighting into the engine room so that you could see what you are doing.  The LED strip lights are brilliant and really let you see what is going on in all corners of the engine room.  This revealed the full horror that was the engine room floor with a mix of old oil stains etc so this was cleaned up and made spotless so that we will see if there are any problems with the engine.  In the interim we had run the engine and found some oil back in the bilge so clearly a proble that needed to be investigated some more.

The next stage of the engine improvement programme was combined with an education for the crew.  In the future, when we are travelling we will have to be as self sufficient as possible and that means being able to maintain the engine.  We had not personally serviced the engine and so Lindsay agreed to give us a course on how to maintain the Yanmar engine.  This took nearly all day since Adam did most of the work himself under the watchful eye of the engineers and this was the first stage, more advanced engine maintenance will be covered in a subsequent day.

The stars of the show on this particular day were:

• Lindsay, “The Master”, main role seemed to be telling everyone else what to do while chatting up the other skipper, a certain Mrs D 😉
• Callum, “The talented apprentice”, actually did the guiding and was hands on
• Adam, “the untalented apprentice”, got all the scrapped knuckles!
• Maria, “the supervisor”, able to chip in “useful” comments from the safety of the navigation seat while chatting up Lindsay.

Lindsay started with a quick explanation of the various elements of the engine and a high level view of what we were going to do.  After this we set to work by draining the oil from the engine and the oil from the gearbox.  This was replaced with fresh lubricants.  So far so good, access and visibility are good.

it was then time to start to attack the filters.  The oil filter was quite simple and not too messy with a screw on and a screw off and then we were onto the fuel system.  Firstly, we had to shut down the fuel lines with “lobster” clips, I have no idea what they are called but they looked like red lobster claws to me :). The first stage filter mounted ahead of the engine looked simple enough and had a drain at the bottom of it.  We opened the drain and expected fuel or gunk to emerge, nothing. We loosened off the top bolts of the fuel filter but still nothing.  At this stage, we realised that the work was going to be a little more onerous than we first thought.  We would have to take apart the fuel filter and understand what was going on, and it was likely to get messy.  Having loosened off the top plate bolts we set to doing the same to the bolts lower down that hold the lower part of the filter to the case.  We also removed the fuel filter that needed to be replaced.  On inspection, this was filled with black gunk which was clearly part of the problem.  The lower half of the mechanism was also filled with black gunk and hence why the drain wasn’t working.  All of this needed cleaning up and then reassembling with some of the bolts being “fun” to access unless you had the hands of a five year old.  We eventually got this resolved and with a new filter we were ready to move onto the second fuel filter.  This was a simpler job, similar to the oil filter (I wonder whether this was the only one that had been changed on previous services).  Bleeding the fuel system was a lot easier than I had expected, I had heard stories of having to bleed each injector and had thought we may have to do that at sea if there was a fuel problem.  Actually on the Yanmar it is a lot easier with a single bleed screw at the top of the fuel pump above the fuel filter. So gearbox is done, fuel filters are done so onto the impeller.

We had recently had an overheat problem, which we think may have been related to us not double checking the coolant levels after the hot water system had been changed.  We made the mistake of checking the expansion tank which wasn’t being touched because the coolant level was so low. As part of our investigation of this we had spent some time looking into the cooling system to see what the problem was.  Again, in retrospect we should not have trusted the expansion tank to tell us the water level but that was a lesson learned.  As part of the investigation we had taken the cover off the impeller to check that it was working properly.  So this was familiar ground even if the access under the bottom of the engine isn’t perfect and it doesn’t give a good angle to see what you are doing. The plate coming off was easy and it was time to use the impeller remover, something to be added to our setup.  I couldn’t get it to bit on the screw and subsequently discovered that the central extractor bolt was too far in and was stopping me getting it attached to the impeller, another schoolboy error.  We got the impeller out which was consistent with being a couple of years old and in good condition.  In the past I have been clear where in the past things haven’t been done to the standards I would have expected.  One thing I have to say was that the was a fine selection of spares for impellers, oil filters and fuel filters (just a shame some of these had t been used….sorry couldn’t resist 🙂 ).

We were able to get he new impeller in placealthoug hat first it didn’t seem to want to go in without a bit of “jiggling”.  Lindsay had noticed a flaw in the impeller plate that was looking damaged, and for lack of a replacement, had filed down the reverse of the plate so that this could be used.  Clearly not a long term solution but certainly better than the part worn plate that was there.

The final step of the engine service was the fan belt change.  Our Yanmar comes with three fan belts which includes an aftermarket setup that appears to be bolted onto the front of the engine.  The two alternators had different ways of attaching to the engine and adjustment so this provided good experience.  We had also noticed that the fan belt and indeed alternator that had been added later were very loose and needed tightening up.  This could have been part of the reason that the engine seemed quite “rattly” although we had put that down to being an old diesel.

Callum and Adam set to work on these and we able to get everything changed.  We also tightened up the big aftermarket alternator to hopefully reduce the fan belt movement and alternator movement.  At this stage we saw what we think is the cause of the oil leak. One of the bolts securing the big alternator seems to have oil coming from it.  This will take a little more investigation but hopefully means that the oil leak can be resolved quickly. The proof of all this work of course is restarting the engine and this also went smoothly and I’m sure it is quieter and purrs a little more than it used to….

So next steps are to resolve the minor oil leak so our engine room floor can stay spotless and replace the older pipe work on the engine which with age combined with the slight overheat look a little worse for wear.  We will get them done and then hopefully the engine will feel it is being looked after properly.

This blog has been requested literally once. But I am not one to ignore the clamour of my only reader.

When we had the Dufour we had looked into this and decided to go with the RedBox from mailasail with the wifibat extender, an expensive solution that promised a lot. I thought I would be able to pretty much automatically switch between WIFI, 3G and satellite. This is a real techy solution and I don’t think it is as intuitive or simple to use as I would like (and I’m IT literate).  I also had problems using internet explorer and was told that the way to avoid these problems was to not use internet explorer!  Not great customer service.

So when we bought the Moody, I wanted to review what was available again and see if there was a simple solution to my problem. Preferably at less cost than the mailasail setup which although functionally rich is not cheap by anyone’s standards.

After some investigation, I came across the wifigear website which had been recommended on a number of forums and their Wifigear for boats product. Unfortunately, wifigear subsequently decided to stop offering this package. This package joined together a number of industry standard products to form an integrated solution for wifi and these can be bought individually.  This included a Bullet M2 Titanium wifi receiver, an Antenna, Power over Ethernet and a Ubiquiti Networks PICOM2-HP PicoStation M2-HP Router which allows the signal to be shared wirelessly.  
Clearly this all works on 12V/24V and so we have access to this system without using the inverter.

With the inclusion of a MIFI (which allows up to 4G download), I am able to use WIFi where available and switch to a phone if needed.  I also need to understand where satellite phone technology is because I would expect that it would be possible to feed this into the setup at some stage.

That moves me onto the MIFI setup. I wanted something that would be fast so that we could stream TV if required.  This sounds a good idea but with a 15GB monthly limit, it is very easy to blow that watching TV over a weekend! The MIFI needed to genuinely achieve 4G where available, apparently some marked as such do not do it. I thought the 4G would be a form of future proofing :).  We went for the Huawei 4G/LTE E5786 300 Mbps Wi-Fi Wireless Router – Black which has worked brilliantly.  With the “3” SIM card, you can travel aboard for up to thirty days and not pay any roaming data charges which also works very well for us, even though we also use it for the motorhome. You just need to keep an eye in usage, which is shown on the screen.  However, we do travel abroad a lot and these things are changing all of the time.  We have now moved over to EE who offer up to 15GB abroad a month as part of their 30GB plan. Post blog update…….the European usage is unrestricted within your plan since June 2017, so if you go for the 60gb plan you have that much data in Europe, at least until Brexit!

And all this means that Maria can post pictures of the gorgeous food she has prepared 🙂