About Stella Maris

Welcome to the web site for the motor vessel Stella Maris. Here, you will find details about the ship, the crew past and present, and an outline of the ship's history.

Fishing Vessel

Stella Maris was a Kromhout Cutter built in the shipyard at Sneek in the Netherlands in 1962. Her Registration Number was 1623 VZWOLLEH 1962. In 1993 she was re-registered and given the registration number 5951 ZG 1993, which she retains to date.

The ship comprised of Bridge, Engine Room, Fish Hold, Crew Accommodation, and Galley. The Crew Accommodation was aft and consisted of five single bunks. One bunk lay athwartships at the stern, and the other bunks were in line, port and starboard, two each side.

She started off her days as a beam trawler fishing the North Sea and the Baltic side of Denmark. Also, at some stage in her fishing career, she had the identification UK 152 on her bows.

She's believed to have off-loaded some catch at Grimsby, because a former member of the crew of a Fisheries Protection Vessel who boarded her in Grimbsy in the 90's, recognised her in her new guise in Eastbourne in 2006.

As you would expect, half of the ship was given over to a fish hold, forward of the bridge. The net room was in the fore-peak, accessed via a hatch in the deck. Forward of this hatch was a hatch to the chain locker. Both these hatches were covered by a whale back shelter deck. A toilet was located in a small space at the rear port side of the galley, accessed from the aft deck

In 1988, her Kromhout engine was replaced with a MAN 280 turbo charged diesel. This engine is still installed and running today.

Charter Ship

In 2000, Stella Maris was sold and underwent an extensive re-fit and started a new life as a charter boat for sports fishing in the Netherlands. All of the commercial fishing gear was removed. The fish hold was converted in to a large saloon for the anglers .

The crew accommodation was converted to an owner's living accommodation, comprising a small double bunk which replaced the athwartships single bunk at the rear and two single bunks forward in the cabin, one port, one starboard. The central bunks were removed and two settees were installed in their place.

A heads and shower was installed at the forward end of the cabin, between the two single bunks. The net room was converted to a heads and utility room, housing a washing machine and tumble drier.

In 2002, she was sold to the penultimate owners, who continued with the business of sports fishing, but also used Stella Maris for pleasure. As far as I can ascertain, the only significant change that took place under this stewardship was the conversion of the outside toilet to a store room. She had a Euro Number of 2605951 during her charter days with this owner.

Research is ongoing to discover more about Stella Maris in the years prior to 2006.

Liveaboard

At the beginning of 2006, she was bought by us and started the long, slow, conversion to a liveaboard vessel. When we picked her up in Den Oever, in the Netherlands, it was so cold, the sea water in the harbour had frozen.

Thankfully, when Stella Maris was re-fitted in 2000, she was thoroughly insulated and had central heating installed! We put brackets on the deck to house the rib securely, installed a Bauer dive compressor system. Later, we put Stella Maris into dry-dock, primed and anti-fouled the bottom and replaced the anodes, and that was about that.

I like to blame the poor weather for lack of progress in our conversion plans, but the truth is I am too lazy and enjoy doing nothing.

In the summer of 2006 we brought her to Eastbourne and took up a berth for a year in Sovereign Harbour. Here we set about converting the large angler's saloon into two rooms - a comfortable living saloon and a guest double cabin.

We, of course did not finish the work on schedule, and we decided to build an extension which, among other things, would let us get throughout the ship without going on deck. (Up till now, access from aft to forward and vice versa was over the open deck).

This work was not suitable to carry out at Sovereign Harbour, since it involved cutting and welding steel plate, so we took up a berth in Ramsgate Royal Harbour to build the extension and that is where we are now.

Our great plans to sail wherever and whenever we want are stalled until the conversion is complete (and at that rate of price increases on diesel, are going to be subject to review!).