It has taken a while to find the right boat for this trip. We didn’t feel our old boat, a Dufour 39 with a neutrally buoyant centreboard, was suitable. We wanted something a bit bigger and heavier (for comfort), a bit longer (for speed), tougher (for safety) and with more storage space and sleeping accommodation for up to six people. We’ve finally settled on a Moody 54 built in 2001. Dilema has had just one owner from new and has clearly been well looked after. She has a fantastic hull, as rock-solid as the day she was built, a 1.8m draft (shallow for a boat this size), a cutter rig with a simple slab-reefed main and a centre cockpit layout giving good protection from the elements. We’re looking forward to a year in the Med getting to know her and getting her and ourselves ready for the trip.
More about the boat…
The Moody 54 was the flagship of the Moody range when launched in 2000. Designed very much with owner-skippered bluewater cruising in mind, it strikes a good balance between safety, performance, comfort and reliability. At 54′ long it has a reasonable hull speed and should be able to make daily (24 hr) passages of 180 miles or more, an important consideration when you’re planning a trip of over 30,000 miles. Dilema has a cutter rig sail plan (two foresails and a main sail), an easy-to-handle arrangement for a small crew. The two foresails are on manually operated roller-furlers and the main is slab-reefed but has electric winches to make light work of the rope handling. I like this arrangement because the mechanics are all simple and electric winches can still be operated manually even if the electrics fail. We’ll see how she handles during our first season with a view to adding a Parasailor to the sail-wardrobe to improve down-wind performance if we think it’s needed. We are, after all, going to be doing a lot of downwind sailing.
So we should sail easily and at a decent speed, but Dilema is not a hairy-chested rocket-ship. With an unladen weight of well over 20 tonnes we’re expecting a comfortable ride which the crew should be able to enjoy from the well protected centre-cockpit. Our priority is to enjoy the ride and get there safely. And regarding safety, the rigging and hull seem to have been massively specified to deliver huge strength; our surveyor took one look at the chainplates (which attach the standing rigging to the hull and ultimately hold the mast up) and said they are as big as you’d see on an 80′ boat. While I hope we don’t need to test this strength, it’s good to know that this is a tough boat able to stand-up to the rough-stuff if it has to. There’s no sign of any historic damage to the hull, rudder or keel nor any water ingress into the GRP. The standing rigging has been completely renewed this year and the main engine is scheduled for an overhaul at the end of this year, so (apart from a few cosmetic issues on the paintwork) Dilema’s main essentials are as good as we could wish for.
It’s also good to know that Dilema has an extended fuel tank able to carry 1,000 litres of diesel, plenty to get us through any calm patches we’re likely to encountering also to power the generator to keep the batteries topped up for the navigation lights, the recently renewed electronics (Raymarine) and run the desalinator to make fresh-water from the sea. It can also run an air-conditioning system, a luxury I would never have specified but since it’s there we’ll certainly enjoy when there’s diesel to spare!
Inside, there are two decent sized double cabins, a 2-bunk cabin and two separate bathrooms (heads), both with separate shower stalls. The galley is well equipped with a decent cooker and extractor fan, a big fridge and a decent freezer and there’s loads of storage space for all the supplies we’ll need to be well-fed and self-sufficient.
We’re compiling a list of work that needs to be done over the winter, but for now we’ll enjoy getting to know Dilema and exploring the Balearics from Palma.