We have got an offer to put Alwgrip on the Hull, boot strip and rub rail as she already in a shed undergoing some repair . the offer looks attractive   Is there anyone out there who have any good or bad experience with Alwgrip on the hull etc?

Paul on S/Y Kerpa SM#259

Last month my wife and I were anchored off Cabrit in Iles Des Saintes. As often happens, an Amel leaving the area altered course and came by to chat. It was French flagged boat with a nice gentleman who inquired whether we were heading north or south. He circled us once and left. As he was leaving I noticed that his rub rail was sporting "Super Maramu 2000 S"............"S" ???? I had never seen an "S" designation on an SM2K. It looked legitimate.......not like those pranksters who paint 300 hp on their 3 hp Honda outboard. Does anyone know what this was ?

I thought I would add to the group's knowledge base and share my recent experiences. I read all the posts and was persuaded that I should probably change out my 14 year old clothes washer before it breaks. As I found myself in Martinique, what better place than here to do this, as the voltage is 220/50.

The previous posts were helpful in that 60 cm depth and 40 cm width is a European standard. The two long cabinet bolts are also about 61 cm apart so even though there is room in the cabinet, major carpentry would be involved if you went bigger than 60 cm depth. FYI, at least on SM2K #422, the old Thomson 5 kg unit I replaced was 45 cm wide, so despite having slightly more capacity (6 kg vs 5 kg), the new machine is only 40 cm wide. The tricky thing here is the height. On my boat, the max height of the machine at the highest point of the control panel can be 91.5 cm (the height of the inside hinge of the lid). Some of the machines that otherwise would fit were too tall (high knobs, etc.) for this space. Also, the lid handle on some models protrudes very close to the wall of the cabinet on some (i.e 4-5 cm forward of the front). So if you buy a new machine, it's risky to ignore the height and the handle measurements.

There are at least 3 options to purchase a machine in Martinique (Fort de France); Hyper-U (Galleria Mall), Jules Vieules (Galleria Mall), and Darty (20 min walk from Galleria mall). Hyper-U had 1 model that fit. Darty and Jules Vieules had more selection and I'd recommend those options.

We purchased our machine at Darty, only finding out later that the warehouse and showroom are a 20 minute walk apart. We were impatient so we anchored in Fort de France and actually dinghied our machine to the boat (59 kg) and hoisted it aboard. No problem as my wife is quite strong and correctly saw our failure in this effort as being sentenced to bucket washing for at least a year. The old machine is heavier however. I was worried about the reverse process (getting the old machine off the boat without damage) and decided to disassemble it into lighter pieces. Seems like 1/3 of the weight of the old machine is the 3 counter vibration weights bolted onto it. I'd highly recommend this process unless you have 4 strong people on your boat. Amazing to look at a disassembled clothes washer and ponder how it can be 1/4 the price of the simple aluminum casting atop your genoa furler, but I digress.....boat economics, I guess.

The new machine ended up being a Thomson THOM-Top 14 which I purchased for about 420 euros. No carpentry needed at all, save some bracing on the width because it's 40 cm wide vs. the old one's 45 cm width.