Visit our Popular Forums

btrayfors · 12-12-2006, 14:22

From a catamaran charter fleet in Tortola, about five years ago....

An owner who couldn't be bothered with details ordered a replacement Yanmar engine from a catalog picture. It "looked the same".

After installation, it was discovered that the water pump">raw water pump was located only an inch away from a structural and watertight bulkhead.

You're not gonna believe this, but the (excellent) European mechanic who maintained this boat told me the ONLY way to change the impeller was to unbolt the engine and the shaft, and slide the engine back to get to the cover on the pump!

Time required: most of the day, because it was necessary to re-align the engine afterwards.

This little story resulted in my having to have a couple of extra Mt. Gay's at Pegleg's with the poor mechanic :-)

Bill

Seaquesta1 · 12-12-2006, 14:42

Previous owners tapped stainless screws straight into the alluminium frames resulting in corrosion and lotsa stuck fittings.

I swear that there is hundreds of 'em, and me and Mr Angle-grinder and Mr Vice-grip are becoming very well acquainted!!

**irwinsailor** · 12-12-2006, 15:04

May I assume that most of you folks got deep discounts off the price when buying your boats with some of the problems that you found?
I did.

Seaquesta1 · 12-12-2006, 15:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by irwinsailor

May I assume that most of you folks got deep discounts off the price when buying your boats with some of the problems that you found?
I did.

Oh yeah! A $500 pre-purchase survey report gave me the ammo to beat the seller down about $15,000. Not a bad ROI!

Wahoo Sails · 12-12-2006, 15:38

Hey! This is some fun! Lessee hear, this boat had a really cool and exotic battery charger, maintainer, inverter thingie (from Scandanavia) ....uh ... but had never been wired for shore power! All it did was show battery voltage! There were 2 golf cart batteries and a grp24 starting battery wired in both series & paralell ... uh ... but both also hooked to a Perko 3 way battery switch!!! Which of course did absolutely nothing. All in all, I pulled more than 60 lbs of bad wiring out of this boat. Believe it or not, when we got Sew Good, there was not a single buss bar on the boat ... there are now 15!
I'm looking at "new to me" boats right now, just looked at a 28' Hunter .... really, really impressed with the dsign of this little boat .... needs all new standing rigging, all new running rigging, all new plumbing .... geeeeezz ... why would I even consider it?
Bob

jim lee · 12-12-2006, 20:37

The strangest one for me was my first boat's magic chargable wiring system. I'd removed the drowned engine and was trying to get the electronics working. (Consisted of a couple cabin lights and nav lites, no instruments.) I put in a fresh battery and could only get a dim yellow glow out of the lites. The wiring was this huge mass of yuch. Checking stuff with my voltemeter power on, 12 volts, disconnect the battery and.. Still showes power?!? Turn on a lite and it would drain the power. Wierd! The mass of wire would actually take a measurable charge.

I ripped out all the wiring and rewired the entire boat. Only took about a day and it worked wonderful ever since.

-jim lee

cat man do · 12-12-2006, 21:09

Just a question for Seaquesta 1, would that have been Doug and Alan Flockharts boat that used to sail out of R.Q.Y.S at Manly, Brisbane Australia ??

Dave

**Boracay** · 12-12-2006, 23:38

The previous owner got the boat sailing from a bare hull.
His biggest omission-two huge fuel tanks with no primary filter.
I found many secondary filter elements and "spare" electric and mechanical lift pumps.
The lift pump failed just after I brought the boat.

**Alan Wheeler** · 13-12-2006, 00:28

Oh I am so glad to hear this stuff. I thought it was just me.
Day one of ownership, filled all water tanks. Only to find one filler was plumbed to a fuel tank. 200ltrs of water inmy fuel later, I figured something was amiss. Good thing it wasn't fule in my water tank I suppose.
Day two, found our dry food storage locker under a bunk was filled with water. $200 worth of brand new supplies had to be thrown out. thought it must have been a bad leak when we went through a huge sea. Could not find leak. Two weeks later, I filled the fresh water tank. wife goes to get something from storage to find it was fill of water again. This time I track the problem down to some twit had cut the tank breather hose off flush with the storage locker lid under the bunk. when the tank filled, water would pour out and fill the storage locker. The breather never went outside and was 3ft lower than the filler.
Day three, find most of the bilge pumps couldnot lift water out of the boat. The lift head was too great for them. Re-plumbed five complete bilge systems.
Day four. Phew, whats that smell. Holding tank seems to be breathing into boat. Find tank is in two sections and the breather is only connected to one side. When the level gets high enough, the second section build up tremendouse pressure till it escapes through a fitting or drain somewhere.
then things settle down a bit for awhile. Six months later, find the electrical syustem had compleatly shorted and actually had burn't some timber. How it didn't combust I just simply do not know. It should of. Had to compleatly re-wire boat. Things I found wrong in that is a novel in itself.
Finaly we got the boat sailing. Well not uintill we find the "brnad new sails" that we were sold with the boat were actually so old, they were hand stiched. So new sails later, we were sailing.
Then we found the previouse owner had done a quick presale repaint over non prepared old paint. Some of it the paint was coming off in sheets as the old stuff hadn't even been cleaned let alone sanded. So that meant a repaint was on the to do list. However, it was bumped up to high priority when I found a timber port frame was so rotten it simply crushed to pieces when I bumped it with my foot. Later found all frames the same and the previouse guy had just painted over it all to hide it.
Latest as some know around here, the wrong mast had been fitted and we now need to replace it with a new one. That's cool, it's only $10K's worth. Like all boaters, it's small change I am sure I have lying down the back of the couch or somewhere.
Within all that it has been a simple case of replacing leaking hatches, replacing all the Galv turnbuckles becuase they had all siezed. Repairs and maintanance due to the previouse owner just covering up and not doing anything. It's all come back to bite. Problem is, it's my pocket it's biting.

seafox · 13-12-2006, 01:21

So it's not just me

s/v 'Faith' · 13-12-2006, 06:08

Silicone.

Lots and lots of silicone...... apparently one of the DPO's had felt that if something leaked you should apply silicone. Everywhere. Hardware was bedded with it, screw holes had been filled with it, there seemed to be small celebratory patches of it applied in random locations for no reason at all.

Well, in case anyone does not know silicone is evil. It releases silicone oil into the fiberglass on whatever it touches. There is no known cure (release agents, but no solvent)......

Sanding it only drives it in deeper. I had to use chisels and saws to remove what might have been perfectly good fiberglass. Where I tried to cheat and only remove a little, the primer and paint would not stick. Even epoxy applied to the spots this crap had been would fail the pull test the next day.

I think a license should be required for someone to bring a tube of silicone within a mile of a marina....

Then there was the bondo... but that comes out easily enough....

ssullivan · 13-12-2006, 06:34

Uh oh... interesting side note about silicone - I love the stuff!

After having tried it due to the fact that my ports were not warrantied to leak unless you used silicone, I found it works well and come off well as compared to the other 3M products.

Although, I do share your pain - silicone was also the downfall of my PO. As mentioned, he tracked it all over the deck after smearing it around the larger ports we have. I even found it on the mast.

Came right off though.

Connemara · 13-12-2006, 07:04

Both the previous owners were careful, conscientious types. Nonetheless, the surveyor found a few odd decisions:

-- one of the owners (dunno which) installed a cut-off valve on the fuel line. Only thing is, it's in the engine compartment. So if you have an engine fire and you want to cut off the gas ... that's right, open the engine compartment and reach into the flames.

I will be relocating that this spring.

-- and then there's the 110AC outlet in the engine compartment. Gas engine, possible electrical sparks, hmmmm.

I will also be relocating that .. probably just to the cockpit locker side of the bulkhead, but better than nothing. I'd feel so stupid if I didn't do it and went up in flames one day, although -- obviously -- there's been no problem so far.

Overall, though nothing to match some of the other stories.

**Alan Wheeler** · 13-12-2006, 10:04

Oh yeah I forgot one of the biggies. The mention of fire just reminded me.
I decided to re-run and clip to the bulkhead the main LPG line from the bottles. The hose being used was a reinforced hose but not a proper LPG rating and illegal to use. I pulled the original 12mm(1/2") line up to find a reducing joint. The line reduced to 10mm(3/8) I think. Anyways, whatever it was, the reducing was done via the smaller hose being inserted into the larger hose and a hose clamp place around the joint to hold it together. .................. Add what ever words you want to in that space, I don't think any word could descibe the shock I got.