Do you enjoy ?...

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Zven

I learned from my father that this factor is actually 3.14.

By the way, there is also a safety aspect to all this... When things go pear-shaped and stuff starts breaking down far from shore, a bit of technical knowledge of the boat can often save the day.

I often wonder what those who go cruising with nearly no knowledge or fix-it ability do.

Ive been fixing stuff since I was child (I still have old Craftsman tools I bought before puberty to prove it!) and working on mid-sized boats specifically for over 2 decades...that experience has saved my bacon many times.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by IslandHopper

"The Wind in the Willows",

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing... about in boats — or with boats. In or out of ’em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not" The Rat....

Ah yes, an infinite self replenishing consumer of time and money boats are. I often joke that if you have too much time & cash on your hands...buy a boat...it will quickly eliminate any surplus of both for you!

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by KeelMe

I get paid to work on other peoples boat so I can afford to pay people to work on mine. I love working on the electronics, I am a PRO after all, but I will pass on sanding, painting, polishing, and anything that requires me to stand on my head.

I have strong amateur level skills in most areas of boat work and I often help out other cruisers. Sometimes they inquire about hiring me to work on their boat. I say sure, but here are my terms: my rate is US$500 per hour, I dont represent myself as a professional anything and I dont guarantee my work. Fortunately, no one has ever taken me up on that offer. [emoji41]

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by billgewater

My problem (although the wife says I have many) is that when I fling myself madly at some repair or other boat event, I always get the time expectation wrong. Very wrong.
Yes dear! Should take about a day! Two weeks later, same job. same opinion. Ten times the estimated cost ..... Slow learner as well.
Are these problem unique to me?

Oh yeah, this never happens to anyone else. Ahem. I just turned what should have been a few hours of work on my engine into two months! Part of it is the intimidation of doing something wrong and part of it was my work schedule. It's hard to deal with some things with insufficient bandwidth.

[Reefmagnet]

My 3 month haul out to fix some deck leaks and keel scrapes is just about to hit 3 years...

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

My 3 month haul out to fix some deck leaks and keel scrapes is just about to hit 3 years...

Ouch. Care to elaborate why it's taking so long? That's just beyond painful. I see you're in an upside down sort of place, too.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Ouch. Care to elaborate why it's taking so long? That's just beyond painful. I see you're in an upside down sort of place, too.

Well I had a bout of unexpected cancer that essentially knocked me out of action for a year or so not too long after the boat was hauled. But the real cause was an increase in the scope of work because a) we looked behind stuff we were fixing only to discover more stuff that needed fixing, rinse and repeat; and b) Thanks to my illness creating an attitude adjustment, retirement moved forward to ASAP and the purpose of the boat changed from being a weekend and holiday cruiser to a compact long distance, long term cruiser which resulted in a lot of new functionality being added, and a lot of gear upgraded, too.

And of course, life in general gets in the way. In hindsight, it probably is better at some point to just sell and upgrade but hindsight is a wonderful thing. And in the spirit of this thread, I can now fix just about anything on the boat blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back. And so can the wife, too

[gamayun]

Reefmagnet, I didn't mean to be so flippant. You've certainly had it tough and glad to hear you're on the mend and have also turned the boat work into a positive learning experience. On that other comment about being in the upside down part of the world, It was super curious to me how you got the text to be upside down, too?! All the best on your cruising plans!!

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Reefmagnet, I didn't mean to be so flippant. You've certainly had it tough and glad to hear you're on the mend and have also turned the boat work into a positive learning experience. On that other comment about being in the upside down part of the world, It was super curious to me how you got the text to be upside down, too?! All the best on your cruising plans!!

Thanks gamayun. On a plus side with the refit we now even have a kickass integrated computer network onboard that offers 3 levels of redundancy before reaching for the laptop / tablet charting options and keeps the wife (and me!) happy with its internet access and multimedia capabilities. Thankfully, time buys bargains, so most stuff is purchased heavily discounted. But, hmmm, maybe we have gone a bit over the top, all the same!

And upside down text is easy. Just go to a site like this one and type away...

http://www.fliptext.org/

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

And upside down text is easy. Just go to a site like this one and type away...

Flip Text » Write Upside Down Text

A lot of those "upside down" converters, including your link can only handle lower case letters and will convert everything to lower case.

Here's one that actually handles Upper Case quite well.

https://manytools.org/facebook-twitter/type-upside-down-aboqe/


puɐןsuǝǝnὉ 'ʎɐʞɔɐW

[captprogreso]

Originally Posted by MarkusK

You are not alone. I hate making mistakes. This means I re-read books or re-watch videos to make sure it sinks in. Then I measure 10 times before I cut. Then the unforeseen happens (always!) and my time estimate is out the window.

The same for me. I need to redo things two or tree times, very costly but i am very proud of learning things about my boat.

[dfelsent]

I get deep satisfaction from sailing. And motoring though not quite so much. And the tranquility of doing boat projects in my zen trance while cursing a blue streak about busted knuckles is pretty darn satisfying too.
Well maybe not quite so zen. But the projects do, as sailing does, let me enter a different space.