As a standard the Moody 54 has a life raft fitted in a dedicated locker on the aft deck above the aft stateroom. I guess this is well positioned since you should always step up into the life raft and with its weight, not many older cruisers are going to be able to pull it out and lift it over the guard rail so the water will be lapping over the stern by the time you are ready.

However, apart from the aft lazarette and the anchor locker there is no stowage accessible from the deck. This was not a problem on our previous Dufour 455 which seemed to have lockers everywhere.

For these reasons we decided to move the life raft to create an additional locker and to make it more accessible in case of emergency.  At the same time we braced the pushpit by connecting it to the heavy duty davits. The work was done for us by Ian and Rob at East Coast Stainless, based in Ipswich.  We were really pleased with the work and they were able to fit us in despite becoming increasingly busy as their reputation goes from strength to strength.

As you can see, it is a simple quick release frame, which allows the life raft to be stowed safely and deployed quickly.

So the Moody arrived with an Avon 340 rib, with no engine. Unfortunately, Maria has an unfortunate history with inflatables and seems to lack the ability to get in or out elegantly, she has the same problem with Lotus Elise’s 🙂

We knew if we were going to have a tender that Maria would be comfortable with in any weather then we would need to look at improving or changing.  Maria is not a fan of the jockey console and we know people who have found these uncomfortable. I’m sure Maria’s reason is linked to their similarity to motorbike seats and her dislike of these for safety on the roads. So we would be looking at a bench seat and a standalone console. I looked at pricing these up from Outhill who had a vast range for a number of ribs.  The ones for our Avon would fit and do the job.  When I started pricing up these, including fitting and a new engine, the price was increasing rapidly.  Although the Avon was five years old, it had hardly been used, but we explored alternatives thinking we would sell the Avon.

Mariadz is fitted with 300kg Simpson Davits which are excellent and how the rib is normally stowed. However, these are rated for 150kg each and I was keen that we wanted to be well within the limits of the davits. There were several reasons for this.  Firstly, it was likely that the rib would be used for rubbish etc on passage, there was likely to be a cover for the rib which would be in addition to the weight of the rib and engine.  Finally, water weighs a lot and a rib can hold a lot of water and I was concerned in case this happened for whatever reason, because it was likely that the weather wouldn’t always be good there would be a lot of water flying around! We didn’t think we could extend beyond the 340cm that the Avon had been since this did occupy the stern.

Having considered a number of manufacturers and gone to the boat show, we looked at the Walker Bay Genesis series. These are super lightweight and have a shape that seems to push water to the side rather than up, over and in my face. With a 20hp Suzuki motor (power start, power lift, remote steering) the whole setup was 150kg (ish) and I was comfortable that this was well within our limits.  On the advice of Dan Cross at Boatsmart, we decided to have the thin-profile throttle which looks a lot smarter and navigation lights. As part of the deal for the motorhome we agreed that they would deliver the Rib when they collected the BMW which we had traded as a deposit for our motorhome. This saved us the delivery fee, the cost of fitting a tow and buying a trailer, or of sailing the boat to the South Coast to collect it.  The delivery went without a hitch and the “lads” at Ipswich Haven Marina (you know who you are Phil et al…), took her in the big lifting cradle to put her in for us. Of course we went through the mandatory first time problems. Where is the lock for lowering the engine? Also being unable to start the engine through a combination of not pumping through fuel or not having the fuel cut off line inserted. Eventually she started and we took her back to Mariadz to become the new tender.

We have read a lot of blogs and have seen that quite often people will look to see what Ribs are tied up on the pier because this is a sure sign that the mothership is unoccupied. For this reason we were keen that the “tender to” signage was not too prominent. On speaking to our insurance company they were comfortable with her being named in her own right and having t/t Mariadz on it and so we engaged Geoff at Atlantic-signs again to help us.

But what to call her? As I’m sure you know Mariadz is not named after Maria’s intentions when she met Adam! And we have two feline crew…..so the Rib is called Connie after Clyde and Bonnie. So the decision was made and Connie, t/t Mariadz was named.

As you can see from the photo above Maria is comfortable to get in and out of this one ok :). And, as you do in these situations, we both had a little play while we got used to the new rib.

So play time was over and it was time to bring up the Rib onto the davits recently vacated by the sold Avon.  This is where the fun started. The lifting points were in different places to the Avon and the internal shape of the boat meant that the chain that we had to attach the lifting mechanism to the Rib was the wrong length.  This resulted in much cursing and several trips to fox’s chandlery we finally got the chain to the right length with the right connectors so we could lift the rib.

At this stage the davit mechanism’s started slipping but that is a whole different story for another time…..

So our final enhancements were to add a portable plotter with built in GPS so that we also knew the speed she was doing, we wouldn’t want to break any rules. She is now fitted with an anchor and ready to go.

We had spent a long time selecting our rib to make sure that we didn’t overload the davits which are 300Kg Simpsons Davits.  We selected a rib that weighted less than 100kg and an engine that meant that all-in we were at less than 50% of the maximum load of the davits.

It was therefore somewhat of a surprise then, when one of the first times that we lifted the new dinghy, the davits started to slip and wouldn’t lift the rib.  On inspection, we found that the gears inside the davits were sheared.  This was clearly something that had happened at some stage in the past since there was very little fresh damage on the gears.  As for the cause of the problem, we suspect that the davits had been overwound and this had caused the damage on the gears.  We were able to get these replaced but need to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistake by continuing to wind in the cable when it is already at the top.

The fire that had caused damage in her previous life had also caused problems for the floorboards in the saloon. These had been sanded as much as possible and beyond in places but still had black marks in places. This had been conveniently covered with a carpet.

Now I know we shouldn’t complain about this, maybe we should have removed the carpet on one of our viewings, maybe we shouldn’t have trusted the survey to find these issues, maybe we shouldn’t have trusted people to be honest about what they were selling. Yes we were naive but this was only the second boat we had bought and the first was unused even if it had been three years old. But we were not going to let the fact that the boat started out in a much worse condition than we expected, and impact our standards.

Although the floor is often covered with a carpet, it is nice to be able to take it away and have beautiful wood showing through. We looked into replacing all of these boards with brand new quality floorboards. The cost wasn’t excessive and the difference is remarkable.

Just when you thought it was safe to venture to the cockpit to get some fresh air….

Those who saw the first Mariadz, the dufour 455, will have had the benefit of seeing that marvel of modern engineering, the Maria Smallwood (now Dunlop) cockpit tent. In the future, these designs will be right up there with Concorde, the harrier jump jet and the Sinclair C5 🙂

Maria’s original design was not, as it appeared, inspired by a greenhouse or conservatory. It was in fact a carefully thought through design to ensure that the tent could be used in all conditions and could also be used when sailing. The join of the spray hood and Bimini were made of clear plastic to aid visibility. The vast amount of clear plastic prided excellent visibility. Unfortunately it didn’t prove Clyde-proof who took approximately seven seconds to escape and end up on the pontoon!

This fundamentally changed out of season sailing for us and allowed us, if you will forgive the mental picture, to go out sailing in pyjamas when everyone else was wearing full wet weather gear.  This also had the advantage of allowing us to defy the doubters and go out in most weather (not too much wind obviously….).  The cockpit tent was equally suited to life on anchor or in a marina and provided additional outside living space.  The easy access provided by the aft cockpit and stern-to mooring worked well.  We even found that the saloon stayed warmer since the companionway was protected from the outside elements. We had the work done by Jeckells, not the sailmakers – the other one, they were competitive and the job was to a reasonable quality.

So it was a little bit of a surprise when, just a few short months after having this wonder fitted, we decided to change the boat! It was no surprise when Maria subsequently insisted that we have the same again fitted to the Moody.

This time we spent some time talking to Paul Gray at Dolphin Sails. In the interim we had seen a beautiful Moody 49 called Mornin’ Gorgeous (a lovely boat owned by a lovely couple).

In their cockpit tent they had a back drop from the spray hood which acted as a mini tent – a porch for the companionway door or a very nice sheltered spot with good visibility if the weather got bad. Maria loved this and had to have it incorporated into our design. Paul also persuaded her to go for the mosquito nets that replace windows in a hot climate at night (normally at anchor). The Bimini part of the design works really well and removed the need for the supporting lines by incorporating this support into the legs of the Bimini.  When the sides were zipped in, it becomes a garden room, I guess the sea is our garden though :). We subsequently had ventilation added since the tent was so good it could cause issues with damp and heat creating black marks. Hopefully the ventilation pockets will resolve that.

The cockpit tent has been fantastic come rain or shine and incorporates the drop that allows a “porch” or more importantly a dry safe area in bad conditions.

As for construction, we had this made with weathermax and strataglass which apparently will not get tarnished like the clear panels did on our old dufour.  I guess time will tell.

However, it does look different in different weather conditions….