How Often Do You Sail WITHOUT Something Breaking ?

[bassman1956]

How appropriate a thread!

[fishwife]

In the past 8 weeks, we fixed or maintained: two impellers, the steaming light, five other bulbs around the boat, 3 oil changes on the genny, 2 oil changes on the main and the racors on the genny and the engine, changed the zinc on the heat exchanger, bought two new dock lines, (cheap so put in store for later), a burst fender (still don't know how that happened) and of course, the fire damage. One radar has lost it's sync and probably needs a new belt or something, I've not looked. Not bad considering we've covered 3000+ nm.

P.

[mintyspilot]

Why does anyone think boats are special? This weekend, here on dry land....

- one of our office servers lost its DMA controller
- my wife's car got a hole in the exhaust system
- one of the kids dropped and smashed the telly remote
- my bike got a puncture

Last weekend I got to

- Repair an old doorframe
- Replace the boiler's thermocouple
- Kill and clear a wasp's nest

And then there are those horrible tasks that never seem to finish like mowing the grass, cleaning the house, painting various external woodwork, car maintenance, etc, etc.....

I think it's called "maintaining civilisation" whether it is on a boat or in a house. There is always something that is broken or needs replacement. Nothing special about boats in that respect.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Someone wrote on here the other day (so close to remembering who...) an analogy of riding bikes in races and busting wheels. When he didn't bust any more wheels he told the shop they were better built wheels. The shop told him it was that he had finally learned to ride better!

We just returned from a 10-day cruise on one of those advanced boats with lots of gadgets. Nothing broke, no bulbs were blown. A bit of spray got to a chart that had no business being in the cockpit, but the chart was salvageable.

This was a great improvement over last summer's two-week cruise, where we lost a bucket.

[zeehag]

over a near year of cruising the gulf coast we had some fun with gremlins in works--the main sheet traveller decided in a storm to give---gave up its clevis pin and swung self everywhere--we got one ding in gelcoat from it, no heads got banged--lucky--we fixed... there were always the issues of filters =fuel filters clog up in th eweather seas and when needed they dont filter anymore---so change those out while in a nasty sea....fun...
no light bulbs, no lightning strikes--we were most fortunate, considering we were out in them frequently....
bilge pump hosing cracked in main saloon, so we wondered why the boat was soo very wet......
turnbuckle snapped at fort jefferson--we were again fortunate the threads were still sorta there--we used them and made it work....
lots of little things--but we figgered our near year was a shake down cruise--prolly was for all of us--kat, phillip, me and the boat.......we broke rudder on a spoils bank in 41 kt breeze in the dark when we were pushed onto it in our exhaustion from running from extreme weather in april....bad front was expected to have 80-100 mph winds in super cells, so we ran to psj for shelter----broke rudder, split skin of hull, but only at the rudder!, wow--but we got her home under her own power, and phillip, boats owner, spent 35 days on hard fixing boat....where he found out what exactly we did do to the boat and how fortunate we were to be able to get her home for repairs...
also got oiled from bp spill from subsurface oil on our way home...prolly just before we turned right to go to psj--we were 100 miles out, oil was seen to be there just after we left there.......was a great trip..

[capn_billl]

I bought an older boat with known problems. It was th eunknown problems that got me though. After a couple of weeks of hard maintenance I get 30 or 40 trips before the boat goes back to the shop. I have been slowely redoing the wiring replacing crimpted(automotive) style connectors with soldered and heathsrhrinked connections. I guess that is a big advantage of sailboats if the sails are new and you dont sail through a storm they can last a long time.

[Strygaldwir]

"cruising is fixing boats in exotic places"

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Bash

We just returned from a 10-day cruise on one of those advanced boats with lots of gadgets. Nothing broke, no bulbs were blown.

Thats the sort of new boat I want. And if the bulb blows you ring them and they say: 'We will send a tech on the plane this instant! Don't worry, it is all part of our service its FREE even though you are in Outter Oodnagalarby'.

[thinwater]

Really, everything on my boat works and I believe in good maintanance, but I never fail to be amazed at the people that will cut a cruise short or stay home because something less than critical - something that didn't exist 50 years ago - is not working. I require only the basics:

* Rigging. Must be sound. If running rigging goes, most can be repaired with spares.
* Sails. If something gives, sew it up or use other sails.
* Engine. Fix it and get going again.
* Electronics. For coastal sailing, a hand held VHF is enough.
* Electric. If the lights go, don't sail at night and carry some spares. There should be a way to start the engine from a flat battery, if possible.
* Safety gear. And lest someone whine, the required gear. This will vary with the waters sailed and the season.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by thinwater

* Electric. If the lights go, don't sail at night .

We've lost the nav lights a number of times (I've fixed it now) and we just use a nice bright white light for ships. They dont know if you are coming or going but at 6 knots you look stationary anyway looking like a stern light is fine

[sailorboy1]

When I started this it was because I was a little fed up with the fix 1 thing and find 2 things that need fixing. But then I never have had something break that stopped me from using the boat, so guess that when it comes right down to it that things are good.

It does seem that I fix 2-3 things for every 1 item I started out to. So maybe I am just fixing things too early. Maybe I should start doing what I used to do when on submarine duty; when I knew something wasn't working right but couldn't figure out what was wrong I would just say lets run it till it breaks and then we'll know.

My steaming light did't work the other night, so I turned on the deck forelight. May have confused someone but they couldn't say they didn't see me!

[thinwater]

Also, much of what we work on are improvments. My last work day included:

* Window covers. Improvment.
* Replace spun prop. Repair, but only a 5-minute job.
* Wear patch on tender. Preventaive maintanance.
* Install flat screen. Improvment.
* Install bike rack. Improvment.

Yeah, it gets better, as you get things in shape and the way you like them. Most of the improvments are just for fun, anyway.

[Brent Swain]

Sometimes a decade or more.

[Hudson Force]

If I were to spend the money to have nothing broken, then I would be broke; therefore......Take care and joy, Aythya crew

[anglooff]

I am somewhat reluctant to say as I don't want to temp providence. However if I state at the lower end of the poll then perhaps it will be overlooked. During the two plus years I have had it back in water after an upgrade I have had nothing so serious as to stop me sailing. It has been generally pernickity items. never the less whenever I visit the boat I do a quick tests of all systems and deal with anything faulty (Ie recurring port running light...which I eventually rewired) before the day,weekend or longer cruise/sail. TBS my experience is that more often than not, a problem is an exception rather than the rule.

Regards

Alan