Our Boat

Our Current Boat

Our current boat, Tickety Boo, is a Moody 346, which we bought in April 2015. Scott has had his eye on Moody boats ever since he first started sailing when we lived in Scotland. They're British blue water cruisers and rarely come up on the North American market, so we were thrilled to find one that worked out for us.

Moody 346s were first built in 1986 and continued to be produced until 1990 with 254 being built in total. They're an updated version of the Moody 34, the only difference being that the 346 has port lights and a sugar scoop (which is a huge plus in my opinion). They're considered to be good cruising boats both in terms of livability and performance.

After living and sailing on our last boat in New Zealand (a Raven 26), we learned a lot about what we were looking for in our next boat and made up a wish list (you can find links to it on our Boat Buying page). We knew that we would never find a boat that ticked all of the boxes, but the Moody 346 ticks many of them. 

You can also take a little tour of Tickety Boo here and read why we named our boat Tickety Boo here.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Designer - Bill Dixon of Angus Primrose Ltd
• Built - 1987 by Marine Projects (Plymouth) Ltd
• Length - 34.5 ft / 10.5 m
• Beam - 12 ft / 3.7 m
• Draft - 5 ft / 1.5 m [Note: We have the fin keel version, other Moody 346s have a bilge keel.]
• Tonnage - 9.15 regular tons / 8.3 metric tons
• Displacement - 11,200 lbs / 5,085 kgs
• Ballast - 4,500 lbs / 2,040 kgs
• Mast height - 40.66 ft / 12.4 m
• Height waterline to top of mast - 46.35 ft / 14.1 m
• Thornycroft T80 engine 35hp [Note: This is the original engine and is basically a marinized K4D Mitsubishi block. They aren't as easy to get parts and service for worldwide (unlike a Yanmar), so we're hoping we don't have too many issues. The transmission was replaced in 2013. The injectors, tips, glow-plugs were serviced and injector pump rebuilt in 2015.]
• Sloop rig (standing rigging replaced in 2011)
• Hull - solid fiberglass
• Decks - cored fiberglass
• Rudder - skeg hung 
• Steering - pull-pull 
• Prop - two-blade

SAILS

• Double reefed dacron mainsail with lazy jacks (replaced in 2015)
• 120 dacron furled headsail [Note: Serviceable, but will need to replaced at some point.]
• Spinaker with chute and halyard
• Furlex reefing system

TENDER

• Caribe RIB - 9 ft / 2.7 m
• Tohatsu 9.8 hp outboard

EQUIPMENT

• Autohelm 4000
• Garmin GPS echomap 50 (bought in 2015)
• Standard Horizon Explorer Series VHF radio, handheld receiver and RAM mic
• Navsounder depthsounder and knotmeter
• Shurflow Blaster wash-down pump and anchor wash
• Shurflow Aqua King water pump - 3.0 GPM (bought in 2008)
• Par 37202 and West Marine 12 volt bilge pumps
• Xintex C-2 propane control system
• Superstor water heater
• Micrologic Loran Navigator [Note: obsolete system]

ANCHORING

• Anchorlife Dolphin 1000 windlass with 6 pocket gypsy for G4 HT chain and controls at bow and helm (bought in 2010)
• Rocna anchor - 44 lbs / 20 kgs (bought in 2015) [Note: main anchor, 120 ft of galvanized G4 HT chain and rode]
• Danforth anchor - 26 lbs / 11.8 kgs (bought in 2015)
• CQR anchor - 35 lbs / 15.9 kgs

SAFETY 

• Kidde Mariner 10 fire extinguishers x 3 - located in companionway, lazarette and aft cabin (inspected in 2015)
• Emergency signaling - red handheld flares x4 and red meteor flares x4 (updated in 2015), 12 gauge flare gun, air horn
• PFDs x 4, tethers and jacklines
• Echomaster radar reflector

ENERGY

• Kyocera KC80 85 watt solar panels x3 (mounted on davits)
• Blue Sky Solar Booster 2000E charge controller
• Xantrex battery monitor [Note: not accurate, no longer used]
• House batteries - 6 volt x4 (two located in aft cabin, two located in engine room)

OTHER BITS & BOBS

• Davits
• Tankage - one 46 gallon diesel tank below port cockpit seat (replaced in 2009), two 25 gallon water tanks below settees in saloon, one 25 gallon black water tank in lazarette, one 5 gallon hot water heater tank
• Propane tanks x2
• Dodger, bimini and sail cover (updated in 2010)
• Ultrasuede upholstery in aft cabin and saloon (updated in 2010)
• Cockpit cushions (updated in 2015)
• Cold plate refrigeration (replaced in 2009)
• Galley - double sinks, microwave, Force 10 two burner stove and oven, salt water spray
• Magma grill (bought in 2015)
• Jabsco manual marine toilet
• Sony CD player/radio and 10-CD changer with saloon and cockpit speakers
• Paper and electronic charts from Great Lakes to Grenada 

Moody 346 layout. Source: Sailboat Data

Our First Boat

 

Our first boat was a lovely little Raven 26 called Rainbow's End, which we owned when we lived in New Zealand. The Raven 26 is a real Kiwi classic. It seems like everyone you meet in New Zealand either owns a Raven 26, used to own a Raven 26 or knows someone who had a Raven 26 at some point. Okay, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but they're a popular little boat in New Zealand and with good reason. 

These keelboats were designed by Owen Woolley and around 400 were built during the 1970s-80s. There were two versions of the Raven 26 built - the earlier ones with a ply sandwich construction and the later ones with solid fiberglass decks (we had the latter one). The Raven 26 was designed to be a high performance cruising yacht with what has been described as an amazing amount of room both below and above decks. And after having lived on our Raven 26, I can attest to that! A surprising amount of room for such a small critter. They have a distinctive flush deck which gives decent headroom down below. Even 6' tall Scott could stand upright - well, in one particular part of the boat only. They theoretically sleep five people, but I found two of us was enough when it came to living on board. We definitely went bigger with our current boat!

All in all she was a great first boat for us and it was a bittersweet moment when we sold Rainbow's End (which you can read about here). If you're interested in more details about Rainbow's End including some pictures and specs, you can check out this post here.