Luxury Items

[colemj]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Satellite TV, added last weekend, I know many will roll their eyes, but we watch too much TV and I want to be weaned off it, not go cold turkey. I'm trying to make the transition easy
...........

I see Radar, plotter, AIS as Safety equipment, but that autopilot was pure luxury

After you have been out cruising for, oh, one week or so, you will look back at this post with amusement.

You will find your days so full, and be ready to call it an early night, that you will forget TV even exists.

I also bet you will take that above equipment list and turn it 180* in priority.

I bet the first hour out you will not continue to view an autopilot as a luxury!

Mark

[accomplice]

My favorite luxury on our boat is an espresso machine. It certainly is not our only luxury, but it is the one I derive the most enjoyment from.


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[Tayana42]

My greatest and favorite luxury ( and most expensive) on board is my wife. And if anyone tells her I said so I'll deny it.


S/V B'Shert

[tbodine88]

I have a west wight potter. The admiral said if I put cushions in that covered the entire cockpit, she'd go sailing more often. I had them custom fitted. I like 'em, but she's not been out sailing on them yet

[a64pilot]

During the ten day delivery trip having to hand steer the way down the intercostal wasn't that bad, but once we left Marathon, that 3 or 4 days of 24 hour hand steering between three of us became a real chore.
This Summers trip from PC to Key West, having an autopilot was what I consider a pure luxury, no you don't have to have one, but it sure makes life easier if you do.

I hope your right, I think though that there will be days of wind and rain where we sit in the boat and sort of get cabin fever, For the last several years, we watch TV for a couple of hours a night before sleep, it's a habit.
Truth is I can't go for another year and a half, and I'm over-preparing, I know that. I'm like the guy who keeps improving, but never goes. Just we will go, just can't yet. If I quit work now, the cost of land living over the next year and a half will eat me up, so I work and buy boat toys until then



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[dohenyboy]

Heart shaped bathtub for 2

[colemj]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I think though that there will be days of wind and rain where we sit in the boat and sort of get cabin fever

Those will be the days that you are frantically jury-rigging broken stuff and trying to keep other stuff from breaking so that you can get going again when the weather is nicer.

Mark

[Reefmagnet]

I'm not a big TV watcher although the wife enjoys her shows. Tablets kind of take care of the basics these days but it's nice to settle down in front of the "big screen" to a movie after dinner on occasion. We've always had a tv on board for watching DVD's going from a 10" model on our 25 footer to a 24" unit on the current boat. The new tellies don't need DVD player's anymore - just a USB storage device and can play movies of all sorts and slideshow photos. I'm in the process of rigging up a multi-band 3G whip antenna so hopefully we'll have enough Internet grunt in places to even stream netflix which we get for basically nothing. The current telly even has a mast top antenna so we can catch the free to air game live as well when in range!

Which leads me to my luxury. I could survive without the telly, but I'd severely struggle to cope without onboard Internet!

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by colemj

Those will be the days that you are frantically jury-rigging broken stuff and trying to keep other stuff from breaking so that you can get going again when the weather is nicer.



Mark

No man, not me, I kept 24 of the most complicated aircraft in NATO flying in the desert with few supplies, boat ought to be easy, peasy
Just kidding of course, but I'm looking forward to constant preventative maintenance, it's something I like and it will give me something to do.


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[Tx J]

Une chauffeuresse to transport my Bentley Spur between ports.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

No man, not me, I kept 24 of the most complicated aircraft in NATO flying in the desert with few supplies, boat ought to be easy, peasy
Just kidding of course, but I'm looking forward to constant preventative maintenance, it's something I like and it will give me something to do.
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I hope you are kidding. Pilots tend to fly and mechanics work on the aircraft. Not to mention all those other troops that clean toilets etc. I don't think you "kept 24" helicopters flying. If you were in charge of all that, great. and yeah maybe a boat will be easy peasy compared to that.

[a64pilot]

No, I'm not kidding, I am an A&P, with my IA, and spent the first 5 yrs as a 67V, a helicopter crew chief, so yes while being is charge is one thing, but seeing someone struggling with changing a transmission and being able to show them a better way because I had the experience and knew how is another, and I had a level of training that they didn't get, and I flew the thing so I knew if it wasn't quite right.
Its sort of old school but Warrant Officers especially in by gone days, grew up from the enlisted ranks. I was an E5 on the E6 list when I went to flight school.
While usually they did do most of the work, most of the time I was right with them, and did the majority of troubleshooting, with something that complex the biggest battle isn't fixing it, it's figuring out whats wrong with the thing, and that was my speciality


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[model 10]

We are straying from luxury items. I too am a pilot and have an A&P and had an IA and was in the military. Those things don't mean you do everything. I know how the military works or did during the last war effort. If things have changed to the point that only one guy knows and does everything in an army unit, no wonder we are lost.

[a64pilot]

Yeah we are straying, but we are not lost, I can assure you that. I've been Retired since 02, but when I Retired I believe it was from the best we have had for a long time. And I didn't say I did it all, that is ridiclous, but I was trained and capable to do all the maintenance, was even on TI orders. Trust me it took everybody to keep AH-64's at a good OR rate, the rest of the pilots always did the cooking, if you can call K rats cooking, and serving food and cleaning, setting up their tents after they set up the Crew Chiefs tent, Everybody worked the menial tasks, there was just not enough people for the pilots to just fly. I think it has been that way for a long time, read the book Chickenhawk, it was that way then too.

Just remembered another Luxury, a windlass and this weekend I'm hopefully installing an inverter / charger, never realized how huge and heavy this thing is, but hey the Wife will no longer have to ask if she can use the toaster, for some reason she won't remember it doesn't work without the generator, same with her hair curling iron. I get the grins every time she puts bread in it when we are at anchor, expecting something to happen


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[model 10]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Just remembered another Luxury, a windlass and this weekend I'm hopefully installing an inverter / charger, never realized how huge and heavy this thing is, but hey the Wife will no longer have to ask if she can use the toaster, for some reason she won't remember it doesn't work without the generator, same with her hair curling iron. I get the grins every time she puts bread in it when we are at anchor, expecting something to happen
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Some of those big heavy inverters with the big coils inside are great, sometimes not, like Zantrex.