How big must a boat be before it become 'easy' to work on?

[annageek]

The float switch for our bilge pump was playing up, so last night I set about sorting it out. Easy job. Should only take 15 minutes.

... 3 hours later, I'd just about finished!

OK, so we have a 19' sports cuddy... Rather small by this forum's standards. If I'm honest, there is a lot of boat packed into 19', so it stands to reason that there will be some jobs that are awkward due to lack of space. However, we've done a lot of work to it over the winter, and I have been astonished that virtually every job that's needed doing has been almost impossible due to the thing that needed adjusting/replacing/fixing being in a place into which human hands/arms are not meant to venture!

Last night, I actually had to make a plywood support, suspended by ropes, to lie on so I could 'hover' above the engine at an inclined angle, head first in the engine bay. The boat's on the trailer on our driveway, so god only knows what the neighbours were thinking, seeing my legs sticking up in the air, coming from the engine bay! Even with this, I still had the engine in the way, and by having my hands near the float switch I blocked my vision of what I was doing! I had the same problem when changing the fuel filter on the engine's lift pump.

The reason I'm posting is to ask the question that was running through my head last night (as it lay wedged between the alternator and trim pump) - how big a boat do you have to have before the sort of items you have to change/sort out every few years, fall easily enough to hand? Or is it that small boats, if well thought out (and not cheaply made - like ours) can be easy to work on, and larger boats, with little thought regarding servicing at the design stage, can be just as much as a swine to work on?

 

[TimBennet]

How big must a boat be before it become 'easy' to work on?

When it's big enough that you can afford to have paid crew.

"Hey you! Fix the float switch"

Bingo, job done.

 

[crazy4557]

I have a Targa 43 and need to change the mid bilge pump float switch but there is probably about the same amount of room as you have judging by your description...so in answer to your question you need to go bigger than 45'.

 

[longjohnsilver]

All depends on how much the builders or designers have tried to cram in.

 

[annageek]

When it's big enough that you can afford to have paid crew.

"Hey you! Fix the float switch"

Bingo, job done.

Hehe! good answer!

 

[ronsurf]

It's more a question of design than size. If something is well thought out with regard to someone having to fix it, then it'll be easier than something poorly designed.

I have a similar thing with guitar amplifiers. Some you have to dismantle and desolder connections to get to commonly serviced parts - these are not well designed. A good design takes this into account and all you have to do is unscrew a board or two, and there is enough lead length to allow the board to be tested/repair/serviced.

Unfortunately, good design for people that have to service them does not sell boats! I'm still waiting for a leprechaun to come up for sale on eBay so I can train it to do all my fiddly fixes.

 

[Wavey]

It's more a question of design than size. If something is well thought out with regard to someone having to fix it, then it'll be easier than something poorly designed.

Agreed. IMHO too few manufacturers give any consideration to the poor people that have to try and work on the things once they've been sold.

Edited to add that a classic example of this was my previous boat. Being hull number 1 was really no excuse for fitting the saloon floor in such a way you couldn't get the engine dipsticks out

 

[jrudge]

We are 65 feet and whilst some things might be nicer access in the engine room, not much changes really. There are still panels to remove, holes to dangle down, impossible spaces to fit into.

I can dip the oil in comfort and stand upright in the engine room, but actually "doing stuff" is not really that much different. Remember bigger boat = more stuff crammed in as opposed to lots of open space!

 

[mlines]

Various reviews of our boat describe it having easy access to the engine. Clearly the reviewers or the manufacturers have never actually tried access anything at all. In trying to get some work done we have spoken to various engineers who suddenly seem reluctant when we say its a V8 in a Regal.

 

[BruceK]

I have a 19 foot cuddy and a 34 foot cruiser. By comparison the cuddy engine access is palatial by comparison. It took 20 minutes of me staring at the trim tab resevoirs on the cruiser trying to see if hydraulic fluid was still in range and another twenty figuring out how to squeeze down there past two great big diesel lumps just to top up. In the end they were OK, total damage, 1 x steering hydraulic resevoir bracket. Yeah, wasn't able to backout once in.... sort of like a head caught between railings affair, except it was Her Admiral's crown jewels.
Mindyou, I remember being able to climb into the engine bay of my Mk1 Cortina to get at the bell house bolts. The other day I opened my Land Rover Disco's bonnet to do an EGR valve blanking off session. I quickly closed the bonnet and sent it off to the dealer who decided new EGR valves was a much better idea and charged me handsomely for the privilege. Anybody for some £8 quid blanking plates? Got a couple spare. So it's a problem not just related to boats

 

[benjenbav]

There was an engineer called Gordon (name changed) who used to work on my boats who came highly recommended and I had used for years without ever meeting him. Then on a 30-odd foot boat I had to do something which I was unable to get to owing to being of a comfortable middle-aged build. I was chatting to a friend of said engineer about this and mentioned ruefully that if I was as slim as Gordon I'd do it myself.

At this point the person to whom I was talking appeared to have some sort of a seizure. Eventually he stopped laughing and gasped, "You haven't met Gordon, have you?"

A few days later I did meet him. Now, if I'm comfortably built he was more so; no two ways about it, in fact, Gordon was stout.

But, how on earth do you get in to the engine bay, I said, always the diplomat.

Aha, he said, there's me and then there's the lad: he's more of a racing snake.

 

[BruceK]

Ahh, time for me to put my lad on a starvation diet then. He's 7, still trainable .... :encouragement:

 

[spannerman]

I found when we got the Princess MY 95 things got decidedly easier with walk-in engine room and standing height in the forard bilge where all the water and vacuum toilet equipment is located. Hardest job was changing the wet bar fridge pump on the aft deck.
But to be honest the new Bavaria 34 motor boats are a mechanics dream, they put one engine where there is room for two.

 

[Trundlebug]

When we bought our 33' boat I thought the 30 years experience of rebuilding, tinkering and working on (old style) Minis as well as other cars would stand me in good stead, as nothing would likely be as tight, cramped or fiddly to get at.

I was wrong. The boat is much harder to work on, with fewer options for access in many cases.

Like you, I've discovered that every job on a boat takes at least 4 times as long as you initially estimate. Even when you add a hefty margin to account for this. I still haven't figured out why that is!

 

[rafiki_]

Rafiki is 40 ft of Italian splendor. Hardest job so far has been changing a fuse. I kid you not. There is a fuse box in the 2nd cabin with about 150 fuses. I have a wiring diagram that has little relationship to the fuse box. The fuses are hidden in mountings that open..........somehow.
Engine room is full of........engines, calorifier, black tank. I can get between the engines, but anything on either side takes some thinking about, and dexterity.
Earlier Rafiki was 33 feet, but the engines were much smaller, so access was much easier.

On anything 60 odd feet and bigger, usually the engine room is a walk in job, so at least you can stand, but of course, there will be generator(s), water maker, aircon etc etc to cope with.

As others say, sometimes, you just need staff. Unfortunately, that's me....................

 

[prv]

It's more a question of design than size.

Absolutely! Even on Stavros, a 600-ton ship, the Assistant Engineers tend to complain about having to crawl into tiny spaces and perform awkward contortions to work on things.

Steve Dashew's FPB series of boats (see http://www.setsail.com/) must be one of the best examples of good design for maintenance, it's a bit of an obsession of his and a large part of what sells the boats to their niche customers.

Pete

 

[annageek]

Oh good! So basically, working on boats of any size, shape, creed or colour is an utter PITA! At least I'm not alone! I'll try to remember that the next time I'm doing a headstand in a mucky bilge!!

The crazy thing is, although I'm quite tall, I am fairly slender with smallish arms and hands, and still find that there is only just enough room to get to things. Given that 99.9% of all other people who do this sort of work on boats are men, and therefore have bigger arms and hands etc, I have literally no idea how they would manage!

 

[Momac]

Access to most things , if not everything, on my F33 is easier than on the S23 I had previously - both Sealines.

 

[prv]

Access to most things , if not everything, on my F33 is easier than on the S23 I had previously - both Sealines.

Bet it's not as easy as this though

http://www.setsail.com/the-engine-room/

Pete

 

[aquapower]

My job is to arrange for work to be carried out to ships, most about 60m to 140m, it doesn't get much easier at that size, biggest issue is getting anything into the engine room, we have to use scaffold quite a bit for access, most things are too heavy to lift so chain blocks/crane is often required, you never get much time to do any repairs as the vessel is needed back to work asap, I have also spent many years working on boats up to 60ft, the newer they were the more equipment was crammed in, answer to the original question - boats are not considered easy to work on at any size.