KISS Boats???????????

[Pegu Club]

The things we did for KISS sake, we got rid of water heater, pressure water, marine head & holding tank, went all LEDs, and foot pumps for fresh water system, and a composting head. We added: a Monitor steering vane, with a pelagic tiller pilot attachment,(hand steering for days on end with no wind or wind on the nose gets old). Two one hundred watt solar panels and two firefly oasis batteries, we also have an Engle fridge, and a B&G Zeus 2 7” MFD. we are by some accounts basic but we are not savages oh we as well use paper charts in conjunction with the MFD.

Fair winds,

[RaymondR]

One needs to look at KISS from both the gadgets required and the implementation of the required actions.

Take pre GPS navigation for instance.

Some of you young folks may not realize that there was a time when we had only simple navigation instruments like a sextant, a compass and some charts. Knowing where one was at sea largely depended on keeping a constant record of where you had been in order to be able to reasonably infer where one now was - and, I don't mean within 100 yards or so, I mean within five miles or so.

The whole thing with compass bearings, doubling the angle on the bow, speed estimates etc. was horribly complex and constantly ongoing.

In contrast, these days one has a chart plotter. Internally these things are horribly complex with millions of operating components all operating strictly to the beat of a clock which ticks millions of times per second to instructions devised by teams of programming personnel. However they do, at a glance provide one with a position accurate to a few metres.

So what is KISS these days. Buying a, or a number of, horribly complex device(s) so that one can simply tell at a glance where one is, or going back to simple devices like compasses, protractors, charts etc in order to implement a complex series of operations requiring a degree of accuracy on the part of the practitioner to implement and operation which might allow one a reasonable guess as to where you are.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Top ten warning signs that your boat might not be KISS

1. Saildrive
2. Air conditioning
3. Deflatable dinghy
4. Motorized winches
5. Bow thruster
6. Inverter
7. Hydraulic backstay adjuster. Also, running backstays
8. Lithium batteries
9. Water heater
10. More than one head

Nadda … not a one. Boy am I KISSy .

Like I said, KISS is a relative concept. As with most cruising questions, the answer depends on the crew, the boat and the intended cruising grounds. My definition of a KISS boat is one which uses systems that are either very reliable, AND/OR ones that can be maintained and repaired by the crew.

A VHF radio or chartplotter are highly complex systems, but they are also very reliable. For me, a windvane and manual windlass are both reliable AND are things I can maintain and repair. Someone with more skills could easily consider an electric windlass and a hydraulic autopilot as KISSy if they are able to maintain and repair it.

So … it depends.

By my definition a non-KISS boat is one where a system breaks down and this stops the cruise. The story of boats being waylaid for long periods awaiting the repair-person or the specialized part is what I’m thinking about.

[sailorboy1]

Well I have:

- pressure water (2 hours maintenance the past 9 past years)
- hot water heater (0 hours maintenance the past 9 years)
- 2 standard cheap jabsco heads (2 hours maintenance the past 9 years)
- 2 holding tanks (10 hours to replace hoses with the expensive ones about 6 years ago, maybe 2 hours since to replace pump)
- 3000w inverter/charger (no maintenance ever other than I replaced once to get a feature I wanted)
- 300W inverter (30 minutes last month to replace fan)
- freezer/refrigerator (1 hour to replace fan the past 9 years, 2 hours to replace the lid seals, 6 hours to replace the mechanical controller for spillover fan with an electronic one)
- autopilot (in 18 years the whole system has been been replaced and that adds up, but last 3 years 0 hours maintenance)
- radar (spend 2 hours trying to get it to work again, not a big concern to me)
- chartplotter (2 hours the past 9 years to add an aftermarket GPS to it)
- diesel generator (hours and hours and hours to fix the POS that is now over with now that it died)
- 40" TV and DVD player with sound bar (0 hours maintenance the last 3 years)
- propane gas system (2 hours the past 9 years)
- air conditioning (15 minutes once a week, to clean strainer, 10 minutes to clean filters, 1-2 hours every couple of months for flushing, 2 hours to add hard and soft starters the past 9 years)
- 620W solar (never needed any maintenance)
- 440ah of cheap batteries (20 minutes each month to check and add water)
- propane BBQ grill (it's falling apart so 10 minutes every couple months to "fix")

so complex boat not really that much of a "too much time needed to fix it" and I've done all of it myself

the joy of having all the "stuff" ............ Priceless (happy wife and happy life)

BTW - if one of them breaks down it wouldn't stop me from getting underway, but if its a loooong trip and the autopilot breaks that is going to be a serious decision

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

One needs to look at KISS from both the gadgets required and the implementation of the required actions.

Take pre GPS navigation for instance.

Some of you young folks may not realize that there was a time when we had only simple navigation instruments like a sextant, a compass and some charts. Knowing where one was at sea largely depended on keeping a constant record of where you had been in order to be able to reasonably infer where one now was - and, I don't mean within 100 yards or so, I mean within five miles or so.

The whole thing with compass bearings, doubling the angle on the bow, speed estimates etc. was horribly complex and constantly ongoing.

In contrast, these days one has a chart plotter. Internally these things are horribly complex with millions of operating components all operating strictly to the beat of a clock which ticks millions of times per second to instructions devised by teams of programming personnel. However they do, at a glance provide one with a position accurate to a few metres.

So what is KISS these days. Buying a, or a number of, horribly complex device(s) so that one can simply tell at a glance where one is, or going back to simple devices like compasses, protractors, charts etc in order to implement a complex series of operations requiring a degree of accuracy on the part of the practitioner to implement and operation which might allow one a reasonable guess as to where you are.

A hand held GPS and pilot charts will do all that for a lot less..

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

")

so complex boat not really that much of a "too much time needed to fix it" and I've done all of it myself

the joy of having all the "stuff" ............ Priceless (happy wife and happy life)

Totally agree
Would not have got my partner/financier to buy the boat and happily move aboard without the niceties

. BTW - if one of them breaks down it wouldn't stop me from getting underway, but if its a loooong trip and the autopilot breaks that is going to be a serious decision

Big victron inverter/charger would see us looking for immediate and urgent replacement as we are mostly 240v onboard. We do have a spare 60amp victron charger, probably should look at an inverter to go with it as a spare.

Autopilot? Managed to buy a complete same same but better as a spare for a couple of hundred bucks a few months back. Its in now and running with the old one as a spare.

[Tayana42]

Do you cruisers mean that my boat is not KISS with both the escalator and elevator/lift, the steam cleaner for my wife’s ball gowns and the electric rotating racks for her 3 dozen pairs of dress shoes? Oh yeah, central Vacuum, 3 refrigerators, 3 freezers, 6 AC units and of course the his and hers sun beds.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

BTW - if one of them breaks down it wouldn't stop me from getting underway, but if its a loooong trip and the autopilot breaks that is going to be a serious decision

I’m with you on that - no auto-pilot, no departure. I can’t even imagine sailing a 1000nm voyage hand-steering the whole way.

Speaking of KISS, my view of the concept is knowing my boat and it’s gear well enough to be able to fix 80% of the systems myself and having redundancy for the other 20%.

But we’re not going out there to camp. Living on our boat is little different from living at home. In fact, next year we’re thinking of renting our home out while we’re away and if the tenants need to stay longer when we get back, we’ll put our boat into the local marina and live on it for as long as necessary.

So we have many of the trappings of high-end boats on our modest 33 year old boat. Most of it installed by me, many systems built by me, almost everything maintained by me. It’s easier to note what we don’t have than what we do. We don’t have:

Main furling (we have Harken batcars, stacpac and slab reefing)
Electric winches
Genset (But I do have 3, 2 of them high rate, alternators on the main engine)
Air-con (never hot enough)
Fossil fuel heater (never cold enough)
Forward-looking sonar (although I’m really thinking about that)

And, perhaps counter-intuitively, we don’t have a chart plotter. We rely on hh GPS for passages and iPad Navionics for pilotage.

[Mr B]

Mines not KISS,
It has all the bells and whistles,
It dont have an electric windlass or A/C,
The windlass keeps me fit, And I hate A/C any way,
380 Watts of solar and a wind generator plus the diesel hooked in as well,
I never even come close to running out of power, 28 days at sea, With every thing running 24/7, Lead Acid batterys,

My Dometic fridge/ freezer got submerged, It wouldnt fit out the door with out cutting it in half,
So I put it up on the table and repaired the gas side of it, Worked perfectly,
I needed a gas certificate for it, and the stove, Which just fell apart, Sea water has that effect, Hhahha
So I plugged it into the 240 volt invertor, (new one) thru a 110 Volt transformer, And it works perfectly, Very surprising after being submerged, ,
Tho it did start at -30C in the freezer and -20C in the fridge, Now its 1C in the fridge and -18 in the freezer, And I was going to throw it out, Hahaahha
BBQ oven in the cockpit, So I dont need a gas certificate any more, KISS, I have cooked a roast in it,

On the bike, I live like a cave man, Tent, Sleeping bag, One burner stove, coffee, sugar and milk in a thermos, and one pot, KISS,

[Junglebike]

Cool thread!

We have a hard dinghy which we tow when necessary - saves the complexity of davits, deflation.

C-head means no pumpouts, joker valves or horrible smells. Also allows for only two below waterline through-hulls

No electric winches, windlass, AC. Sometimes wish we had a windlass, but I'm still strong enough to hoist the 44lb Bruce.

We have shore power hot water from the PO - will eventually pull out with all the hot water plumbing

No electronics other than autopilot & depth. Phone/ipad with iSailor is fine for us for the rest.

Instead of a bimini and dodger we have a simple rectangular canopy that we hang from the main halyard and backstay - means the sunbrella will last decades.

Here's another one: since we daysail 95% of the time, instead of hard mounting solar I got a 100W Renogy kit with jumper cables for $250 on Amazon - when we go cruising for more than an overnight it comes out of its case and up on deck to help keep the beer cold. This wouldn't work for long-term but is great for us and keeps the deck clear and the electrical system simple.

I think we might have one of the most KISS 40 footers out there. I'd probably forego refrigeration entirely in place of either a really good cooler or one of the good portable electric coolers that are available now, but the system we've got now works and is not too inefficient.

[Mike OReilly]

#1. If it breaks, can you repair it with your available resources? If so, then KISS.

#2, If it almost never breaks down, then KISS.

Simple… KISS.

[dfelsent]

I’m fortunate in that I’ve got the skills to fix pretty much everything aboard. But not always the tools. And sometimes an hour of the experienced boatyard hand gets as much done as several hours of my labor. Since I’m still consulting hourly that’s a real trade off. On the other hand working on boat stuff is a pleasure and an oddly good source of meditative time for me.
My dad taught me how to sail to and from anchor and docks. How to dead reckon. How to estimate speed by spitting in the water and counting a known length along the boat if it is light. How to use the Maine lobster buoys to estimate current speed and direction.
So it’s all KISS along the coast, and a massive pain offshore if the autopilot fails.

My celestial skills are horrible.

I suppose eventually I might get shore power installed but maybe 8 weeks on marina piers over my lifetime doesn’t exactly put pressure on that.
Except I’m tied to a dock deep in Boston Harbor now avoiding Dorian. (The wind gen is definitely keeping up.)

My thoughts are that the best way to be KISS, if by that you mean self sufficient, is to be able to understand and repair all systems aboard, and to be able to sail and navigate to where you want to go in the event of major parts shortages of failures.
Lots can fail but the boat keeps moving!

[barnakiel]

Tiller and sheet is a KISS boat.



Upwards and outwards things get blurry at the edges.


As the boat grows, you do NOT want it to be KISS. Unless you own slaves (aka crew) and do not mind sailing slow and without comfort.


You also must think about HOW a boat is used. To one hot water is KISS but AIS is truly like let's not go there. To another sailor AIS is a must, hot water is obsolete.


Overall, I am in the KISS shop, but our boat only 26' I still can't say she is KISS enough. I can't correct everything the idiot designer ;-) did wrong. (E.g. no large water tank in the keel!)


Maybe he imagined I would drink sea water ;-)


b.

[Don C L]

my boat is so KISS that I confess feeling a tad inadequate disclosing how simply I am equipped.
I will say I am not belabored with any large repair bills for .. well just about anything...
but then I am just bouncing around coastally here so I can get by with fewer of the modern contrivances like the washer and dryer...

[GILow]

My definition of a KISS boat is not one that is with or without any particular level of equipment, but instead is one that only has the equipment that is needed and USED.

I see many, many boat lugging around old systems that no longer work or are redundant due to system upgrades. Wiring that goes nowhere, rigging bits that no longer serve a purpose or never really worked on the first place.

There seems to be a very great reluctance on cruising boats to REMOVE stuff when it is no longer needed, as though somehow carrying around a depth sounder from the dinosaur age is proof of how salty you are.

Sometimes I hear this being justified in terms of “well, what if my new depth sounder fails?” or “I might need to install something electrical there one day, and the wires will be ready to go.” But if the depth sounder fails, you’ll get a new one, and if you EVER install a new electrical device in that position, chances are the wires will be rusted out or the wrong gauge anyway.

Meanwhile, any trouble shooting is made impossible by a rat’s near of old wires and the boat is three inches lower in the water from carrying so much crap.