After some 5000 cruising miles since delivery in March of 2011, I have some pretty specific thoughts on how Iron Lady is working out. Some were surprises to me.
At the top of the list was that I felt safe on Iron Lady. While I can’t necessarily identify all the features that make the boat safe, between how comfortable the boat is at sea and at anchor says a lot. My husband is also much more relaxed about things and that, in turn, makes me comfortable. My other comment was that I never would do what we have done on Iron Lady on our last boat. By the second day out of New Zealand to Tonga on our first really long passage, I was standing watch – something I would never on our last boat.
Next, my comments about the great room/galley. Our last boat had a traditional pilot house three steps up from the salon/galley area. I was very fond of that arrangement and the galley and wasn’t quite sure about the great room concept that incorporated the helm station, dining area, salon seating and galley all in one area. After 6 months aboard, I like this arrangement better –particularly the spacious feeling and wonderful views created by the ring of windows around the great room. It makes the space feel substantially larger.
I love to cook and a great galley was very high on my list. This included not only a list of nice appliances and features but a functional arrangement of same that worked well at sea, at anchor and in port. We have found that two people can work comfortably and securely in the galley in almost any sea state.
On the appliance list, Iron Lady has a three burner induction cook top, a speed oven (micro, convection, bake and broil), and a dishwasher. I love the induction cook top – it is fast and the cooking surface remains cool, silicone heat pads on the burner area can be used while cooking to keep pans in place and also serve as hot pads on the counter top. The speed oven has worked great in all modes. Both of these are power hungry, but for routine cooking, we run them off the inverters and battery bank. For bigger meals, when the main is not running (provides 7.2 KW of power to the inverters) we fire up the genset and use the surplus power for other purpose including bringing up the battery bank (it should be noted that while in the Pacific Islands, we never were tied to a dock and shorepower). The dishwasher is a must have – gone are the disposable plastic plates and utensils. Better yet, it draws so little power that we run it on the inverters and battery bank. The other “appliance” is the BBQ on the back deck – a full sized propane affair that works even when the wind is blowing. Adjacent to the BBQ is a sink and cutting board that also work as a food prep area. We probably cook on the BBQ more than 40% of the time.
Next in line is the refrigeration. Our last boat had a big SubZero and a chest freezer. Wonderful but completely out of the question if you wish to be generator independent. On Iron Lady we have a two door refrigerator adjacent to a freezer – both are undercounter. There is a second freezer in the basement. Frankly, I would love to have the SubZero and chest freezer back. They just provide better and more workable storage. Generator independence is simply more important to us. We have developed systems to make the refrigeration more user friendly. We use individual plastic baskets in the freezers which are preloaded with food by type. The basement freezer is for long term storage and the upper freezer is used for day to day use. We keep a simple map of which baskets are where and what is in them. Once a week or so, we move supplies from the basement freezer to the upper freezer and update the maps so we know where things are – pretty straight forward. On the refrigerator, we simply keep less stuff in it to keep things more organized. On our last boat, the strategy was to pack the SubZero before departure with enough stuff to keep us going for a long time without resupply. On Iron Lady, we simply restock a bit more often. In fact, we have discovered that Iron Lady is real fish magnet. We catch far more then we can eat, so the strategy has been to trade some of our catch with villagers for fresh local fruit and veges along the way. Occasional visits to towns with open air markets and the rough equivalent of super markets and we can easily keep ourselves very well provisioned while devoting minimal time to the process – besides, it is fun.
Root veges, eggs, onions and the like are kept in baskets in the basement like a root cellar. Other bins and totes store additional dry stores in the basement as well.
The galley also has great storage. As you enter the “L” shaped galley, there is bank of 4 very large drawers on your left. The top drawer is partitioned for holding cutlery, utensils and flat wear. The bottom drawer holds all of our cookware. The center two drawers are used for a combination of cooking items, dry goods and herbs and spices. The galley counter area is ringed most of the way around with counter top garages. One of these holds all of our dishware and glasses, a second holds a breadmaker, toaster and coffee maker (nothing like the smell of coffee and fresh baked bread in the morning). A third holds plastic containers with dry stores like cereal, rice, flour, sugar and the like. A fourth holds spices and cooking supplies like oil and vinegar. There is also a large garage behind the induction cooktop which is used for longer term storage. I have added four plastic garden containers (6 by 12 inches) on top of this area in the window to create a mobile herb garden. We have yet to have one try to make an escape even in some pretty rough conditions. Under the double bowl sink is a cabinet which holds the waste containers (we segregate biodegradable which goes overboard when at sea or on an outgoing tide and trash which is stored in the forepeak in garbage bags for disposal ashore) and kitchen cleaning supplies.
The area over the drawer stack is a perfect place for a large woven basket that we keep full of fruit.
The result is a galley that keeps me very happy.
Next on the list is a washer and dryer – we had a nice set of Asko’s on our last boat and they were a mandatory item on Iron Lady. The washer and dryer are located directly across the galley behind a set of doors. There are counter tops over with more garages like the galley. We use these garages for laundry and cleaning materials and the third near the steps to the back deck is used for my camera gear, the VHF handheld, flashlights, and items like the back deck winch control cable, boat and dink keys. Again, all very functional. The dryer draws too much power to be run off the battery bank, but the washer power requirements are pretty modest and can run on the battery bank and inverters.
A note on genset use from my hubby. When underway, alternators on the engine produce 7.2 KW which is converted in to 240 and 120 volt AC by the inverter bank. While not all boat systems can be run at the same time, there is more than enough power to run a number of high amperage systems at once (high amp meaning the aircon, dryer, watermaker and heavy duty cooking). When at anchor, we can typically go one or two days without running the genset. When we do run the genset, we load it up to keep it healthy. Power is used to do the wash, run the aircon, cook, make water and the like. Any surplus power is put back in to the battery bank. The result is that we can stay energy neutral by running the genset for 4 hours or so every day or every other day.
The boat also has a central vac system that makes cleaning much simpler.
Speaking of cleaning, I have always helped with the exterior as well. On our last boat, this was a big deal. While my kids make fun of the unpainted aluminum look of Iron Lady (they say we look like a military patrol boat), I view the low maintenance exterior as a huge plus.
Other points that are important to me are the custom large dink that we now carry. Since we were able to start from scratch and design something that exactly matched what we wanted both in terms of size and features, we now have the almost perfect dink.
Other outside features that are important to me include the flybridge. We have added fold down legless lounge chairs that make life upstairs simply wonderful on nice days. This area has become one of the most popular areas on the boat.
Finally, the boat is quiet. Quiet in terms of engine noise, hydraulic whine and privacy. The hydraulic whine on our last boat when underway was most annoying. Iron Lady has none. Efforts to reduce noise transmission throughout the boat have also paid dividends in terms of privacy. We have successfully had as many as 6 people aboard for a period of two weeks and no one complained about lack of privacy.
OK – that is the good stuff. What would I like to change? The aft head is a wet head. Pete originally came up with a redesign to make it a dry head with a separate ensuite sink. At the last minute, we reverted to the wet head (his idea). We are both sorry he did so. The aft stateroom and crew cabins are fine for sleeping but not much else. The master stateroom is so wonderful that it really compounds the relative lack of spaciousness aft. Nothing really can be done about this without altering the laws of physics or making the boat bigger, but it is one of those things we would like to change if we could. Our joint inclination would be to model the aft staterooms and head after the master. Separate toilet compartment, separate shower compartment and ensuite sinks in each stateroom. This is a vast improvement over the confined all in one head spaces on most yachts.
All in all a pretty short list of “would like to haves” compared to the “haves”.
Note from Hubby – it is really nice to have a great wife who loves to cruise as much as I do. Keeping the Admiral happy should be at the top of the Captain’s list.
