I have seen some pretty amazing poor examples of boat
repairs on other folks'
boats over the years, and in some of the
power boats I have purchased there were minor to substantial issues that had to be resolved, but in the end, any of us can have a brand new, never been rained on boat and have need to do an
emergency repair on a maiden shakedown to get home or to range of SeaTow before
washing onto a lee shore. Well, not
me, but only because I cannot
afford a new boat
... But many other people...
At the end of that trip, the owner must ensure the repair has been completed properly (without sufficient education to know what a good repair to that particular system actually
is in some cases), and many owners of brand new boats buy them as such because they don't know the hassles of repair (and they don't want to learn them; these folks also
purchase new cars for the same reasons).
Sooner or later, that person is either going to have to make a jury rig or they are not using the vessel (because it is probably impossible to use a vessel that is loaded down with a brand new double of every onboard component along with the tools and materials to enable fabrication and
installation of repairs).
Marinas can take up some slack, but often, repairs get put aside, and things go downhill rapidly from there.
As such, all of us, sooner or later, will eventually do something outside our experience because we are in a pinch to do anything else for a system we have not yet encountered or developed experience to make such repairs "pretty" even in the odd case they are still sufficiently "effective" to survive the event in question and reach port. When such happens, we are going to either learn from it and do the repair better next time, or we are going to leave the situation and sell the boat (if lucky) and someone else learns from our
mistakes (I believe that this is what is being complained about, no?) if the repair is substandard.
I don't like that situation much either, but as I too have fallen into that particular hole on occasion over the decades I have to admit that I have been a fool now and then (hey, just being honest, here
). The result is that I now overthink everything to the nth degree (those who read my posts here know that) and I tend to take all comments quite literally, even when they are not meant to be read as such. Call it overcompensation if you like? I have always had literal thinking tendencies, this experience just reinforces them, I think.
So, to each his or her own, but if I can get my vessel inexpensively enough that I can actually do the work to get her going and actually use her, I am not going to get too ruffled about stupidity of prior owners, I will just pass on the boat or
purchase knowing that I will have to unscrew something that was intentionally (but through ignorance) screwed up, such as the situation where the PO removed all my running rigging and installed blocks on the
mast step without bedding them properly, necessitating my new job of dropping the
mast to redo the step in the coach roof and install the running rigging over again, leading to having to entirely retune the standing wire, etc...
Besides, who else are you going to laugh at, if nobody else tries to leave the
dock without removing an accommodation ladder (or boarding plank, as the case may be) first, untying a random cleated line, or before starting the known cranky
engine in a fast moving dockside
current? How many lose their cellphones and car keys over the side, fall
overboard because they misjudged distance or height differences, or make impromptu use of
solar powered path
lighting units in an
emergency to create an
anchoring light on a sailboat? (hint on the
solar....
)? Those lights work danged well, too, by the way, as emergency
interior, handheld repair lights, or
deck lighting, when the
batteries are dead... Would not have learned that without a dead
battery and a couple of those lights along because I always wondered if I would find use for them... Redneck fix and it works better than a flashlight (no battery needed and only a buck if you somehow lose one over the side, but most of all, they can be tied on a line and hoisted over the spreaders for an emergency
anchor light if you don't have running rigging for a
halyard to run it all the way to the top of the mast).
You bet, there are some winners out there, but they make life fun for the times we are bored and need entertainment (except in the times that WE are the winners
...)
OK, I know my limitations, and replacing the standing 
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions