Liberty is equipped for living a board.
In January 2017 we went to the boat show in Dusseldorf where we purchased major stuff which will help us to live on board.
The main stuff:
wind generator from Silent Wind
radar XHD 18 from Garmin
desalination system
energy dashboard from www.simarine.net
the hydraulic table leg into the saloon
genaker
Yamaha engine for dinghy
Because of the anchor and genaker we had to create new bow anchor roller which will allow us to hook the genaker there and also which will be able to roll in the larger Ultramarine anchor instead of previous Delta anchor.
Quite a few things to install within 2 days, because we have scheduled our passage from Athens to Sicily for ten days. We had also purchased the fly tickets from Sicily to Prague by Ryanair. This was the last flight in 2017, because the season is over.
I have to say that my friends and also local Greek people were telling me, that it is impossible to do all the installations within two days. That Greeks are not that fast and so on.
I was convinced that I will be jumping around them and push them as much as possible, so we will make it. We finally did it and left the marina according to our schedule.
Here you can see how we were having lunch and Greeks were doing wires thru the boat.
I was lucky, because those Greeks were not as mentioned in rumours.
Electricians www.ampmarine.gr who have an experience with the technology and boats. Two young guys, responsible, proactive and with a sense for final touch.
These guys helped me to install the Garmin radar and the battery Simarine dashboard.
Another 3 guys who were doing the stainless steel work on the bow and building the construction for wind generator.
When they started to drill the holes into the boat, I was scared to death. You do not want to have too many holes into the boat, right? 😃
They measured and thought out everything well and the final output looks great I have to say.
Another guy Fanis who is Volvo Penta specialist saved my engine. This guy came at 8pm and spend 3 hours fixing all the problems done by bad charter service. He changed all the filters, engine oil, propeller oil and explained me the engine so I have an idea what the regular service is about.
Next day he proactively spent time with me to check the autopilot on the sea. After he went with me to the nautical shop to buy necessary stuff. Btw there is great 3 level shop called Nautilus. You can find everything what you imagine.
Electrician who installed the wind-generator in the afternoon realised that we have to cut bimini to be able to put the stainless steel construction thru.
It was 3pm, he called to some tailor who was able to take out the bimini to his factory and come back in 2 hours with new zippers.
The only thing we did not install is the desalination system. This will have to be done by Italians on Sicily as well as the sensors for water tanks, fuel tank and black water tanks. The basic sensors which are on most of the Bavaria boats are most probably incompatible with the Simarine dashboard solution.
The hydraulic table leg was done by Mirek, the friend of mine who came with us. The table can be lowered to the level of the sofa so kids will have a large bed to play during the day. The mattress does not have same colour but there will be linen anyway.
Have to say I was very happy with the Greek workers, maybe it was because in Athens they are used to work. Probably on some island it would not be that easy.
Of course I should not forget that we brought all the new kitchen stuff which we got from our friends at our wedding in 2016 :)
Big big thank you!
