everything breaks when your cruising?

[paradisenow1946]

So far since november weve had to repair our honda generator twice, once in titusville, water in the carborator, then in ponce pr, broken starter pull.
our outboard had an overhaul in vero beach and 2days being repaired its a mercury 15hp.
A weld on the back rail of our boat has broken, repair will be done in spring,
our handheld for our autopilot broke, not just the cord but the pins where it connects.
Our bow light broke on the way to the mona passage (in the caicos) then again in the mona, its repaired and a new one installed, this time we gorilla glued the lens in place, so far its still up
we had to repair circuts on our main board due to water leaking while we got slammed in the mona passage too.
then in ponce we saw white smoke out the exaust, water in the fuel, it was remedied by bleeding the filters and that is solved
as is a replacement for the fan belt on the engine
that is just the short list of what has broken. Seems if your going crusing you just have to be aware to bring replacements, stop at places you can get mail thru and keep a throw away cell phone so you can call to find stuff when you do stop at a new port.
kathleen
s/v legacy
st johns, vi

btw the boat is a caliber LRC 2000..

[boatman61]

Ahhhh.... The joys of cruising....

[rebel heart]

The more stuff you have, the more stuff will break. Can't escape it.

Working in technology has made very resistant to needing it for my safety or happiness. It's not that I don't want luxury and convenience, but I can't stand it when it breaks and my quality of life drops. I have systems of my own of course and I suppose even a sailing rig is a system, but man oh man do I try to cut down on the number. Especially the ones with a lot of moving parts.

[bljones]

If you need an arc welder, scuba gear and a crane to repair a broken stern rail, an O/B, a generator, a fan belt or an autopilot...
... you're doing it wrong.

[osirissail]

The sea is a tough mistress and as you spend more time cruising you will find out that the old saying has some truth to it. "Cruisers sail from boat repair to boat repair" or "from boat parts store to the next boat parts store." It isn't long before you develop an "ear" for your vessel and its many working parts. Strange sounds and different changes in pitches alert you to something not functioning correctly. And you learn to carry spares for the most probable things that will fail.
- - Unless you are very well off financially you also get plenty of OJT on how to maintain and repair every system on your boat. One friend boasted that he had worked his fuel filter changes under way down to 35 seconds.
- - One secret to successful cruising is to plan and review exactly how you will deal with typical and non-typical failures while underway. There are a wealth of books and other literature to help you devise your "recovery" plans.

[jjones1349]

Next will be my third season with my boat that is being refitted as I learn the systems and how to sail this boat. I had a rigging problem last summer that taught me a few valuable lessons that were remembered and nobody was injured.
I still have many years to get out on Lake Ontario to break stuff and still make it home but have been advised the hull on my boat is a tank.
Perhaps by the time I do get to shove off I will have lots of spare parts and knowledge for when the boat breaks again and again. I too have been reading all the stories about our broken boats.
Keep fixing with whatever you have to work with (hopefully all your hull can carry) and sail on.

[paradisenow1946]

Well we did luck out with the generator issue in titusville, we found a hardware store who has everthing you can imagine plus a guy who is a wizard at honda genertors, we cant live without one for our back up power.. he was reasonable. the outboard guy was in fla and he came right out didnt charge us too awful much and helped haul the motor out of the water and into his truck and back when it was done.
on the honda pull cord, we purchased a starter cord for a mower in ponce pr and my husband put it in himself. unfortunatly raymarine will have to fix the hand held
yes you cant carry everthing on the boat, we find each time we feel like were going from port to port to find a new part many times, and sitting there waiting for it to come from the states
yes the joy of cruising
but it beats shoveling snow in the winter
were orginally from michigan so we know your pain<G>
never going back to winter again
so its summers in the us (NC) winters in the tropics and repairs come when they may, well tough it out

Kathleen
s/v legacy
warm and happy in st johns vi

[bljones]

Great attitude, Kathleen!
I figure waiting for parts in the Caribbean is better than waiting for the snow to melt so I can install parts.
Keep contributing. We need to hear more from "warm and happy" people.

[Morgan3820]

Cruising = Boat maintenance in exotic locations

[Bash]

Originally Posted by paradisenow1946

So far since november

welcome to the forum.

cruising is often defined as "repairing your boat in exotic locales."

that said, some cruisers seem to have a lot less luck than others. If you really feel you're having a run of bad luck, it might be good to sort your breakages into categories:
1. Some things just break, and this doohickie's time had come;
2. Operator error (Didn't know you can't run a welder off the inverter?);
3. Deferred maintenance (for which the breakage was the payback);
4. Gear was either too cheap, too small, too old, or not suitable for the marine environment;
5. Pushing the boat too hard, and stuff broke that should not otherwise have broken, at least not yet.

When I first started making passages, I was experiencing a lot of category #5 problems because I was still thinking more like a racer than a cruiser. That's an easy problem to fix. I know other boaters who never think of replacing a fanbelt or an impeller until the old one breaks.

The point is that there are fewer category #1 breakages than we like to think.

[perchance]

Beware of water in the fuel. It can destroy your injectors.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by paradisenow1946

So far......................
kathleen
s/v legacy
st johns, vi

btw the boat is a caliber LRC 2000..

Welcome.

Cool.

Thanks for the lift.

What was wrong with Merc?

[witchcraft]

It seems to me that many things are designed for weekend cruisers...so when we use those things day after day they break. However it also seems that there will be a run of things going wrong followed by a run of things going right. You got things fixed in places where you could...so that is a thing that went right. When you are in places less conducive , you will be ahead of the game cause the things have broken and been fixed.
Systems...well the whole boat is a system. In my opinion (it's how we run our boat) the simpler the better. Simpler allows some room for jury rigging until proper things can be obtained.
Fair Winds