Morvyn Phillips is well known among boaters, not only in his local area where he was formally chairman of the Oxford branch of the Inland waterways association (IWA) but also for his many interesting and informative articles in both Motor Boats Monthly and Moonrakers International. He, along with wife Karen, has cruised most of the European waterways and their adventures are well documented, well researched and make compulsive reading for anyone contemplating cruising abroad. Among Morvyn and Karen's former boats were a Freeman and a Fairline but their pride and joy now is Dairus, their Moonraker 36. They intend to one day bring Darius back to home shores but for the past several years they have kept her on the continent. Do you think its the grey skies that put them off. Since 2000 however, Darius arrived back in Dover and had her Perkins 145hp engines removed, sold and replaced by 175s. That was by no means plain sailing but that's another story!
Following on from a conversation with two other Moonraker owners, Morvyn decided it was time the Moonraker had a club of its own and In 1997, after mentioning his intentions in various journals, the club was formed.
The Moonraker Owners Club had some 50 members in its first year and now, just a short time later, the figures are well in to the 70s (now 90s) with, as the news spreads, more new members joining all the time. There is now an active branch of the club running in Denmark, where some 18 out of a possible 19 Moonraker Owners are now very welcome members of the club. DB