Maintenance alone

[Roberto]

When there are no "friends", aka helping hands.
I do all maintenance alone as I am sure many others do: how do you cope in those cases when an extra pair of hands or eyes is almost necessary?
Example: measure electricity in one place when the switch is at the farther end of the boat.
Turn the engine while priming or looking at injectors, when the key switch is in the cockpit (this I made a special button switch to the starter solenoid, but you see the point.
Go up the mast without the added security of a second halyard.
Cables that need to be pulled and pushed at the same time and they can only be accessed a few meters apart.
What tricks do you use?

Yesterday I used a camera to record an instrument display while I was fiddling with cables, it took more time to adjust its position with tape etc than the actual measurement.

 

[Donheist]

The camera thing is very handy. Two smartphones makes it even easier - I used this to test relay voltage at starter motor while I pressed ignition in the cockpit. Facetime the one looking at the multimeter from the one in the cockpit while you press the starter button.

When there are no "friends", aka helping hands.
I do all maintenance alone as I am sure many others do: how do you cope in those cases when an extra pair of hands or eyes is almost necessary?
Example: measure electricity in one place when the switch is at the farther end of the boat.
Turn the engine while priming or looking at injectors, when the key switch is in the cockpit (this I made a special button switch to the starter solenoid, but you see the point.
Go up the mast without the added security of a second halyard.
Cables that need to be pulled and pushed at the same time and they can only be accessed a few meters apart.
What tricks do you use?

Yesterday I used a camera to record an instrument display while I was fiddling with cables, it took more time to adjust its position with tape etc than the actual measurement.

 

[LadyInBed]

Luckily I have a friend that I can call on most of the time, but failing that, I look for someone on a boat on one of the nearby moorings and ask.

 

[HissyFit]

There are now multimeters with removable displays for reading remotely. I don't know what their range is, but it would probably be around that of standard bluetooth transmission. There is one I've seen advertised on YouTube that only displays to an app on your mobile phone. You'd have to have probes that could be attached with croc clips.