Single greatest improvement to cruising yacht

[NPCampbell]

Lithium batteries, solar, brushless motors, LEDs, embedded processors

[RaymondR]

GPS, knowing pretty well exactly where you are at all times has taken a lot of the stress out of cruising.

[Tillsbury]

25 years exactly, the main difference is chartplotters. I bought a new boat 22 years ago and had a green-screen Raymarine plotter in it, which was ridiculously expensive but hardly used. Three years before that it was almost unheard of - the best you’d get was a gps that gave you lat and long. Now it would be unthinkable to sail without detailed bang up to date charts on high resolution screens right in front of your nose.

[stormalong]

Are you actually cruising or primarily living aboard? That is important to answering your question.

If you are actually cruising I would say a good chartplotter, like opencpn, a good electric autopilot, and then a good windlass. And carefully planned redundancy - if you can't fix it and can't live without it carry a spare.

For living aboard anything that saves labor and increases comfort.

[lancelot9898]

If you do much anchoring out in areas like the Chesapeake...then a washdown pump was the best thing that I've added.

[bcboomer]

Whatever thing that makes the Admiral happy so we can continue sailing together.

[RaymondR]

Prior to GPS, if on a coastal passage, one was obliged to stand well out to sea to ensure a safe passage unless radar was available. Being able to readily plot an exact position allowed one to remain inshore, enter anchorages after dark, change anchorages or go to sea safely in the event of changed conditions. It was a great day when I finally discovered how to get the GPS to talk to the autopilot and could enter all the waypoints and set up a route.

Probably would not have mattered so much with crew available but I have single handed coastal cruised since 2001. The chart plotter is great but the GPS was a real revolution in small boat navigation.

My new boat is FG and has hot and cold running water so I get to shower now instead of bathing out of a bucket in the cockpit for the previous 15 years which is very enjoyable. I avoided showering in the steel predecessor to minimize corrosion.

[Hoodsail]

1. fiberglass
2. pex tubing and shark bite connectors for fresh water plumbing
3. roller furling headsails
4. two-speed, self-tailing winches
5. gps
6. diesel engines
#1 being the single greatest improvement with the rest in no particular order.
thnks
dave

[Frugal]

GPS.

[dcstrng]

The more I read, I'm certainly inching up on a basic solar-setup of some sort; however, for me the biggest improvement over many years has been a simple GPS (handheld 72H -- no chart, but two years ago also got a handheld 78sc, wow... ), which I'd resisted until about ten years ago, and then wondered how I ever got along without it -- especially at night. The other item is a simple depth finder which came with our aged ODay that we got a couple of years back -- I'd had fishfinders years ago on coastal fishing boats, but frankly just thought them necessary for, well, finding fish and sailed for over forty years, content with a chart, hand-compass and home-grown lead-line. But I think the notion of having solar, is growing on me and expect to coble something together within the next year...

[billgewater]

Good Suduko problems.

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by Hoodsail

1. fiberglass
2. pex tubing and shark bite connectors for fresh water plumbing
3. roller furling headsails
4. two-speed, self-tailing winches
5. gps
6. diesel engines
#1 being the single greatest improvement with the rest in no particular order.
thnks
dave

But all of those were a given if you were specifying a boat 25 years ago...

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by bcboomer

Whatever thing that makes the Admiral happy so we can continue sailing together.

That would be an efficient watermaker and an on-demand diesel hotwater heater.

[Pelagic]

Let me earn a few brownie points and say Cruiser Forums like this one, where we can ask questions, share hard come by knowledge of "what not do do" and winge to an appreciative audience.

Just makes you feel less alone out there! [emoji1]

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by conachair

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Internet everywhere. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Not really. Without phone service in the local Gulf Islands, no internet. NOT "everywhere."


I try to avoid: Never, Ever, and Always.