Confession time!

[gunnarsilins]

What´s most unnecessary/useless/stupid accessory/thing/item you have bought, stolen or been given for use on your boat?

Mine was a plastic covered steel sheet of the same size of a Swedish yachting chart.
This sheet was supposed to be kept behind the chart and then you could put either a red or green magnetic arrow on the chart at your position.
Depending of if you sail in the general direction of the fairway, or not, you can use either the green or the red arrow and thus be reminded if you should leave the green or the red buoys on your starboard side.

A sort of rude, manual chartplotter. Which also had the additional bonus of introducing deviation if held near to the steering compass.




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[bedouin]

The liferaft - never used it at all - total waste of money and space

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[steve_cronin]

Seafix RDF in my case Reception was appalling - almost line of sight! However, the handbearing compass was OK

Steve Cronin

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[Guest]

Heaving line of all things ........ made up m'monkeys fist and all that ----- coiled it down in locker ....... there it stayed all the years till it literally fell apart !!!!

Second thing was the ex-wife !! She never did get used to it !!!

<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
Bilge Keelers get up further ! I only came - cos they said there was FREE Guinness !

 

[saturn]

mine was a ships bell inscribed with the word "Titanic"!!.

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[mickshep]

New pump to inflate the tender as the old one never got it hard enough, was that impressed by speed of inflation got quite carried away. inflated it one morning to it's max, an hour later as sun got hot bloody thing went pssssssssssssssss! Anyone want a pump, used once? Moral of tale is;
Knackered pump + Knackered dinghy = soft but happy.
New pump + Knackered dinghy = amazingly fast inflation followed by even faster deflation. Fair winds, Mike

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[Twister_Ken]

Seafix RDF - ah yes, I remember it well! nm

§

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[billmacfarlane]

I once took a back bearing in thick fog off 3 stations while crossing the Channel in a thick fog. I had a cocked hat of about 2 miles , but they were nowhere near my EP. I VERY foolishly believed the RDF and when I finally made a landfall discovered thay my original EP was pretty fair but the RDF put me about 10 miles downtide of where I wanted to be. Bloody useless piece of kit !!!!

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[snooks]

A dinghy!

It wasn't me it was my father....he found this small dinghy in a catalogue, and because space was limited in the little 22ft yacht he though it would be a bargin

Well it almost was...it was a proper dinghy, not a shiny beach job, but it was a bit small, at a stretch is was big enough for 2 people!

I went sailing with my dads friend (who will remain nameless) He wasn't a small chap in his early late teens (stone that is!! - late early 50's in age , we pumped the dinghy up, slotted in the small seat which rested on top of the tubes and all was ready. My dads friend stepped onto the seat, and the dinghy folded under his weight swallowing him like a giant blue clam! All I could see were his arms and a head popping out! it pinned him in perfectly and he just bobbed around

It really was the funniest thig I've ever seen!

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[AndrewB]

One unexpectedly useful thing ...

We were given some small teddy bears for the boat. Why? Who knows how a nine-year-old girl's mind works?

But they've proved just perfect for jamming in the drinks cabinet, down the back of the crockery, among the food tins etc etc for stopping all those annoying rattles when trying to sleep on a swelly anchorage. A permanent feature aboard.

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[claymore]

A load of lightweight harken racing blocks and some spectra for a lightweight racing pulley system for the lifting daggerboard on my Micro 18.
Lowered the keel fine but when I got it lifted right up to come alongside a jetty, the blocks disintegrated under the weight, the keel slid swiftly back down and displaced a few gallons of icy Windermere water into my lap, cushions, spare dry gear and sleeping bag.

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[Johnjo]

Calibrated chain !.... no you do not need that for your windlass,
ordinary chain will fit it fine! Yeh right!
mike

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[BrendanS]

Re: A dinghy!

Now that I've stopped laughing long enough to make a response, how the heck did you get him out?

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[Twister_Ken]

Re: A dinghy!

No, no, that was Monsieur Hulot's Holiday.

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[snooks]

Re: A dinghy!

He managed to step from the seat onto the wobbly unsupported floor of the dinghy, then fell forwards with a splash....he got a bit wet, but I was bend double with laughter and bu66er all good to man nor beast!

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[gunnarsilins]

Flying anchors!

Was the remarkable "Flying Anchor" ever available in England? '
It think it was made in Sweden and it was marketed here as a the ultimate kedge anchor!
It resembled a bit of an assymetric Danforth and had a kind of airfoil profile.
You were supposed to drop it and then it would "glide-fly" under water, far enough to give sufficient scope....!

Well, it did "fly", but mostly in the wrong direction and unless it hit your keel you could expect a scope of something like 1:1,7 or so.
When considering the fact that the thing was a better flyer then a digger it was worse than useless!

I must strongly point at the fact that I never had one onboard!

'Snooks', the 'blue giant-clam' was one of the best stories I ever heard!
I have a very good 'dinghy-episode' on my mind as well, but I´ll keep it for a good Fridays joke!





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[duncan]

a better fishfinder
still shows the bottom like the old one - but prettier
if it shows fish then they don't bite and if it doesn't I don't put enough into the fishing

ignorance would be a better state in which to approach the task

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