SILVER LINING

OWNER UPGRADES Transforming a sturdy Scottish trawler yacht into a comfortable Mediterranean cruiser was always going to be a long haul, but the results are worth their weight in gold

After years of boating and diving around the west coast of Ireland and Scotland in RIBS and small boats, we decided to take the plunge and buy something bigger.

We bought Silver Dee at the end of 2001 for £122,500. She is a 52ft Tyler Mouldings Poseidon twin-screw trawler yacht built by Cockenzie boatyard in Scotland to a design by G L Watson using a ragged chine version of the famous Arun lifeboat hull. Rumour has it she was to be the first of a series of similar boats but nobody seems to know whether any more like her were actually built.

Given her background, it’s hardly surprising that a lot of her build quality is more pilot boat than motor yacht, which has really suited us over the years. Initially we used her for diving trips as far afield as the Shetlands, the Isles of Scilly and circumnavigating Ireland. Then children came along and ruined everything!

After a couple of summers of really bad weather on the south-west coast of Ireland, we decided we needed to head for the sun and made a decision to move her to Antibes in the south of France, where my brother has based his boat very happily for many years. With this in mind, we decided to make a number of improvements before embarking on our journey south, including changing the original Volvo TAMD 70B engines, the genset and her outdated nav gear among other things.

MOVING ON UP

Finding a suitable yard to do the work turned out to be harder than we thought. Ideally we wanted to get the boat undercover but she’s quite tall when she’s out of the water and options were limited. She was based in southwest Cork so we looked at various places around Cork and the south coast of England where there seemed to be some good re-engining outfits, but that would have meant a long drive from our home in Cheshire.

Instead, we decided to go back to West Coast Marine in Troon. They’d done a great job working on her on previous occasions and I found out that they were agents for John Deere, one of the engine brands I was interested win installing in place of the Volvos. The

downside was that Silver Dee was too big to go in their shed and the work would have to be done outside with all that the Scottish weather would throw at them.

Given that this involved dismantling the flybridge, lifting the roof off the saloon, taking the furniture apart and lifting the floor before carefully lifting the engines out by crane, you can see why I was concerned.

In addition to replacing the engines, shafts, props, gearboxes and generator, I also asked them to install new airconditioning, change the upholstery, make a new bimini top, extend the bathing platform, add a hydraulic passerelle and flybridge crane, upgrade all the nav gear with a full Garmin suite of instruments at both helm positions, and fit imitation teak to the flybridge and bow area. As a final flourish, I ordered a complete set of Lumishore underwater lights. We also took the opportunity to spruce up the RIB with a new 30hp engine, refurb the dive compressor on the flybridge and fit a fridge and table up there while we were at it.

We spotted a weather window on October 13, and my pal Steve and I jumped on a flight to Cork to bring the boat to Troon. It was one of those trips where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We left in flat calm, pulled into Kinsale for a nice steak and a rest only for the weather to deteriorate throughout the next day. As we were battling along in a head sea south of Strangford Lough, an impeller failed on the starboard engine followed by the gyro motor on the old Vosper mini fin stabilisers. We diverted into Bangor marina making full use of the bow and stern thrusters we’d fitted a year earlier to ease into a berth on the one remaining engine. Steve was so exhausted, he fell asleep in the bath before heading out for an all-you-caneat Chinese. We certainly got the better of that deal! When we finally got to Troon, it was like coming home as we handed the keys over to Neil and the team at West Coast Marine knowing she’d be looked after.

UK importers EP Barrus helped us to select the correct John Deere 6068 AFM engines and we duly placed the order, expecting the engines to turn up the following May. In fact, we had to wait until July and even then there were problems with the hydraulic pumps for

the stabilisers and the connection of the fuel return, which required the fuel pumps to be taken off and rebuilt. The remainder of the refit took a further year and I ended up on site so often it sometimes I felt like I’d moved to Troon.

BON VOYAGE

The boat was finally ready to depart in early summer 2015 and the time had come to set sail for the Med. I was joined by one of my partners from work, plus three of my diving buddies. We set off fully provisioned and fuelled on a flat calm sea with a beautiful sunset over Ailsa Craig for a non-stop run down the Irish sea to Newlyn, Cornwall. The Irish Sea being the Irish Sea, the weather was horrible off Skomer and west Wales and we seriously thought about a diversion, but we slowed right down and plugged on through. By the time we rounded Lands End it was nice and sunny once again.

We enjoyed a good meal in Newlyn that night and a slow start the next day as we filled the tanks and prepared for the journey ahead. We left in the late afternoon for La Coruna in a straight line and despite all my previous ideas of saving fuel and creeping along, the new engines were so fuel efficient and the Maretron fuel computer information so accurate and helpful in terms of passage planning, that we thought we’d take advantage of the calm weather and run her all away across at 9.3 knots. It was exactly the kind of blissful longrange cruising I’d always envisaged. Regularly accompanied by large pods of dolphins and steaming through the night with a full moon over flat seas, we sat on the flybridge drinking coffee under the stars and relishing the peace and solitude. During the days, the crew refixed one of the helm seats that had come loose on the flybridge and oiled the teak decks. It took 50 hours to cover the 430 miles to La Coruna.

As you can imagine, we had a few bottles of Rioja that night, leading to me being woken by one of the crew at 3am to tell me the Spanish Police were complaining about two of my guys swimming in the harbour. I placated them enough to leave the boys in my charge and left sharpish the next morning to avoid any further issues.

The next night we pulled into Baiona for a few hours’ sleep and allow our chef Gavin to buy some fresh supplies and a new deck wash pump from the local chandler, who seemed so happy to have the business, he dashed off to collect it in his own car. Once fitted, we headed back out to sea and set our sights on Lisbon, where three of the lads were flying back to Manchester. After passing under a bridge that I could have sworn was the Golden Gate Bridge and an uneventful overnight stop in Lisbon, it was just Steve and I left for the final leg down to Gibraltar. Without Gavin the chef we were reduced to snacking on crackers and Cup-a-soups with an endless supply of coffee. It was windy and very dark in Gibraltar and one of the fasteners for the bimini came loose so I needed cat-like reactions to grab it before it all collapsed. Luckily Steve roused from his slumbers, and we fastened it back together using a cable tie to stop it unfastening again.

We couldn’t find any marina space in Gib so we had to go to La Linea at the back of the harbour which is in the Spanish bit. I swear the mosquitos there are bigger than dinner plates. Next morning, it was a couple of hundred yards back into Gibraltar and the fuel berth where we filled to the brim at 40p a litre. From there we cruised via Málaga, Almería, Cartagena and Alicante before heading across to Ibiza and on to Cala d’or on the east coast of Mallorca where we were to leave Silver Dee in the care of the team from boats.co.uk.

SILVER Dee REFIT COSTS

Engines and gearboxes New shafts, couplings and propellers Nearly-new 9.5kw 24v Cummins Onan generator Glassfibre mouldings, radar arch and flybridge seats Tek-dek for bow area and flybridge Bathing platform and ladder Supply of new passerelle, two aft-deck capstans and used crane Used 30hp outboard engine for RIB Garmin nav equipment (2 radars, 3 large screens, numerous extra items) New exhaust system Upholstery Covers including bimini top New batteries all round 3 new air-con units Lumishore lights Numerous other smaller items manufactured and fitted and labour costs for electrical work and West Coast Marine, the primary contractors Tek-dek supplied and fitted for side decks Galley refurb including new fridge drawers, icemaker and freezer and refurb of 2 heads including Techmar loos, sinks etc Sleipner stabiliser system £66,000 £5,500 £5,000 £8,000 £4,000 £4,000 £15,000 £2,000 £20,000

£232,500