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I drive a 125' Steel trawler for a living in the Bearing Sea. I have a full time engineer who's job it is to keep everything running. we have a bank of tech's in town (Dutch Harbor) for when it gets too much. It is a pretty complex machine and there is no frills. At last count I stare at 17 screens and I can't count how many radios/ Sat coms etc......Any way all that said. We NEVER go to town without something needing attention. After 25 years I have boiled it down to this.
#1 Repairs...... They have to come first. Just try to make it as good as it was. My old Capt. taught me " If you fix it right, no one will ever know it broke."
As I outfit my 34' Searunner Trimran, I have removed quite a bit of stuff. Rather than repair it, I removed it. I took off the Furuno Radar. Traded it for the biggest Fortress anchor they make...:-) I have one GPS and paper charts. Will probably get a hand held GPS battery powered back up. Simplify, simplify is my goal....Keep it light on stuff and it will sail better. Ghosting along on a zephyr on flat water is reward for me. I can relax, I don't have anything to fix.....:-)
#2 Maintenance ...gotta maintain things. All the things, the more things ya got the more you gotta maintain it. If I can't stay ahead on maintaining this stuff, maybe I got too much stuff ....
#Improvements ...this is the stage where everything is repaired, all the stuff is maintained. Then I can think about adding on a goodie. But I ging to be REALLY carefull what I bring onboard. Because soon as I got it nailed down I gotta add it to the STUFF list that I have to take care of.
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