Only fellow liveaboards can appreciate...

phanakapan

phanakapan

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26 Mar 2002
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....the joys of having successfully mended both a non-working outboard, and a non-working fridge today! Especially as we arrived in Darwin (anchored 1 nm from the shore) beerless (you had to get a special permit to buy alcohol in Gove, our last stop).

Some new stuff on our blog, if you're interested

www.sailblogs.com/member/wanderings
 
>the joys of having successfully mended both a non-working outboard, and a non-working fridge today!

My record for fixing things was four in one day, a generator, water pressure pump, nav light and anchor winch corroded connections. The longest we went without repairing anything was one month in the Venezuelan out islands, usually something needed to be repaired once a week. The problem is most boat kit is designed for weekend and holiday sailors so it doesn't' last more than a year.
 
A cruising yacht's equipment is in one of three states:

1. Broken
2. Being repaired
3.Pretending to work
 
+ 1
If you are also attempting to refit and refurbish the boat when you're cruising, you end up having to refit and replace the stuff that you refitted and refurbished when you started. Does it ever end or is it fate's way of making you pay for enjoying yourself
 
Humph. Spoke too bl**dy soon. Having got the outboard going, we decided to make sure everything was tickety boo and clean out the inside of the petrol tank because there were little bits of gunge in there. Poked a screwdriver with a bit of rag in there- and suddenly there was a huge hole in the tank. It's crumbling away. Not good.

Temporary repair using the bottom corner of a pancake mix bottle (bit like a plastic milk bottle), epoxied on, got us to shore and back today.

The outboard (Yamaha 2B) is 'only' 28 years old.... determined to keep it going!
 
Just to make you feel better we've got diesel bug in the starboard engine and the oil pressure is behaving silly on the port one.

To those of you following the motor sailing thread, the last few miles at 1 knot were no fun! (So there...)

Hope that helped :)
 
phanakapan said:
Humph. Spoke too bl**dy soon. Having got the outboard going, we decided to make sure everything was tickety boo and clean out the inside of the petrol tank because there were little bits of gunge in there. Poked a screwdriver with a bit of rag in there- and suddenly there was a huge hole in the tank. It's crumbling away. Not good.

Temporary repair using the bottom corner of a pancake mix bottle (bit like a plastic milk bottle), epoxied on, got us to shore and back today.

The outboard (Yamaha 2B) is 'only' 28 years old.... determined to keep it going!
Click to expand...

So it's your fault! The tank on Capricious went the same way a year or so after you'd been on her ;)
 
>Rules for cruising equipment:
1. If you don't fit it, then it can't break.
2. If you've ignored rule one and it's working, then don't use it or it might break.
3. If you've ignored rule 2, it will break; when this happens, throw it away and refer to rule 1.

Brilliant :-) The trouble is you need a water pump and if electric you need a foot pump too as backup, you need nav lights in fact you need most thing that break. I have to say that learning to fix so many things was a pain but very rewarding.
 
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