The Search

Choosing a yacht to live on is difficult and personal, everyone sees it differently.  I was the one with more sailing experience and knew what I was looking for from a performance and safety perspective; Mags definitely had the more practical eye for things below decks and in the cockpit and quickly set out our key decision making criteria.

 

It was also Mags that first identified the Moody 425 as a "contender" for our shortlist and it was she too that first identified the Fox as the one to buy. 

 Search Area

We drove round England, Scotland, Wales and Spain (including Mallorca) covering several thousand miles and looking at 100s of boats over a six month period before returning to one of the first we had seen which was 2 miles from our Spanish base .  Having decided what we wanted, it took another 4 months of negotiations before a mutually agreeable price was reached.

 

It’s worth mentioning that, in general, we found that boats in the Med were in better condition than in the UK simply due to the kinder climate.  There were far fewer examples marked by being  "sailed hard and stored wet" than in the UK.

 

Selection Criteria

 

 

 
What were our selection criteria? Well, in the end we decided the following were important to us: -

1. Capital cost below £100k, (much less if possible!!)
2. Fibreglass for low maintenance
3. Proven, stable and seaworthy (decent keel/ballast, stable, small windows, moderate size cockpit etc)
4. Reasonably fast for good passage times (LWL and fin and skeg were factors here)
5. Roller reefing main and foresail to encourage us to reef early and often and in safety from the cockpit
6. Sloop rather than ketch as the roller reefing gives great variety of sail plans without all the extra mast and rigging
7. Large enough to live on comfortably and have guests from time to time but not so large costs went into the stratosphere. In the end we decided 40ft min and 45ft max.
8. Good storage
9. Decent size saloon with straight bench seats that could double as bunks or for just plain slobbing about on.
10. Spacious aft cabin with centreline bunk (important to us for living aboard)
11. Good sized galley with plenty of cool storage
12. Good engine access (3 sides)
13. Marinised Ford diesel (by Thorneycroft) so parts cheap and readily available.
14. No teak decking (gets too hot and too expensive says Nigel Calder and who am I to argue?)
15. Clear uncluttered decks with area to sunbathe
16. Plenty of opening hatches for ventilation

The Moody was unique in hitting all these marks for the money and size (Along with its sister yachts the M38, M422, and M44). Other yachts we saw seriously tempted us, but in the end the M425 is the boat for us.

Do we see any inherent disadvantages in our choice? The answer has to be yes. Firstly, by modern standards, the heads aren’t as big as they could be and a few inches here and there would improve things considerably.

More importantly we are aware that with a centre-cockpit design there are constraints on the Bimini height and this is going to be a bit lower than we ideally like. Also the centre cockpit can make mooring stern-to a bit more difficult (– but at least you get a bit more privacy once moored.)

Was it an easy choice to make? In theory yes, the boat model selected itself on merit over a period of a few months and many viewings. In practice it got difficult when we narrowed our choice down to the final three 425s – all of which had pros and cons. I have to admit that bottom lips were wobbling when it came to final decision time. That said, having had time to think about it, the decision is sitting well with us both- so we are very happy now.  

The Survey 

Of course once the offer has been accepted there is then the nail biting period whilst a survey takes place. What dreaded things will he find?  Will the search have to start again?

 

In our case this only took a week or two, despite being over Christmas, and the surveyor was very positive about the condition of the yacht and the price we had agreed.

 

That said the Fox is a 16 year old boat that has been lightly used and kept in a marina during the whole of its life.  Even before the survey we had already identified a long list of required equipment as well as the main items needing attention during a refit.

 

             The Fox lifted out for the survey Puerto Banus December 2006

Taking Delivery 

Mags and I finally flew out to Malaga and drove down to Puerto Banus to formally accept the keys and ownership of the Fox on February 6th 2007 some 10 months after starting our search.

 

I must admit being  braced for the worst with visions of the boat being bare, the batteries flat, the engine not working etc etc.  In fact such pessimism could not have been more wrong as the previous owner had done us proud. The 75 gallon diesel tank was full, the batteries fully charged, he had even left cutlery, crockery and clean bedding together with many other items including spares kits and a complete set of manuals. WOW!

 

That night we toasted our good fortune with our friends and hosts Sarah and Mario who live just down the road in San Pedro.  There were some very thick heads the following morning. 

 

The Refit

 

Fitting out a boat to live on is a different proposition to fitting out a boat for sailing holidays. As we intend to go to some pretty remote places we want to be independent as far as possible.  We also want to follow the kiss principle (keep it simple stupid) as the more gear you have on board, the more there is to break and maintain.

 

After a lot of thought and research we decided to make do with the electronic equipment already on the boat as it all worked and we wanted to build up our experience before making any investment.  After all there is often quite a difference between what you think you will need and what you use. We shall replace as and when we have identified the need, one thing is for sure and that is the equipment drops down in price and goes up in power almost daily.

 

The one area where we have decided to NOT keep it simple so far is that we shall be fitting a watermaker despite its reputation as being a high maintenance item. We shall also be fitting a cabin heater.   We want to be warm, clean and comfortable in our home. Our reasoning is that as we both enjoy daily showers and that we intend to avoid the high cost of marinas where we can; having a near infinite supply of water will enable us to go where we want and relieve us of the burden of man handling large water containers from shore to boat. 

 

Despite the excellent condition of the Fox, she has been used from a marina base as a day boat – and it shows.  Items that we consider essential such as plenty of anchor chain, a second anchor, a bimini, a dinghy with outboard simply don’t exist. Consequently the refit list is extensive and includes: -

 

New Equipment

• Inflatable dinghy and outboard
• New anchor, chain and warps
• Bimini

• Gantry for stern to carry equipment

  • Wind generator
  • Solar panels
• Cabin heater
• Watermaker

 

Replacement Equipment

• New DSC Radio
• New display for Autohelm
• New bilge pumps
• New Seacocks
• New Anodes
• New Keel bolts
• New Standing Rigging
• Fire Extinguishers
• Life jackets
• New lifelines

 

The deliberate upside of this programme is that by the time we have completed the re-fit we shall have a boat that we know thoroughly and equipment that we can trust.

 

Sourcing Equipment and Advice

 

Two days spent at the London Boat Show proved well worthwhile as we spent like shoppaholics to take advantage of boat show discounts. We either bought or agreed prices on all the major items that we needed.

 

 I must admit that I had some reservations about the real value of some of the claimed boat show discounts and did some checking on the Web.  This cheered me up no-end, as it proved we had made some great savings when compared with the on-line chandlery prices!

 

Although it may sound like we plunged headlong into spending spree, this is definitely not the case. We have spent the last 10 months reading and researching using the wealth of published books on the subject.  We didn’t know it when we started, but we quickly realised there is a huge liveaboard community out there only too happy to share their knowledge and experience.

 

Any time I needed any advice I just searched or put up a post on the Yachting and Boating World forum and all the advice you could possibly want was received.

 

The link to these Fora is: -

 

http://www.ybw.com/forums/ubbthreads.php

 

For real world advice or an insight into living on board it just can’t be beaten! Those Forumites have loads of experience and are humourous, cynical bunch!

 

Reviewing the whole process it should be acknowledged that it was greatly simplified compared with previous boat purchases as everything we needed to know was so easily found on the Web. Future generations are going to wonder how we ever managed without Google!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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