Owners modifications

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31 Jul 2015
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So when I bought my boat a previous owner had fitted a car stereo. In such a crazy place. Took up space in the chart table so you couldn’t store charts in there flat. Weird thing is that if they had fitted it two inches lower it would have been in a void and no problem. Also the speakers were fitted in the lovely teak panelling. And not even at the same height. This was to a reasonably expensive boat. Here’s the pic:C8BA9D6C-19BC-4103-BEDD-2765528D96DB.jpeg
After a few years I have finally sorted this irritating feature. A Bluetooth stereo system is installed. This covers up the speaker holes. And is fitted into a void. The car stereo is removed. When I had the boat reupholstered I had some additional cushions made that covers up the holes. This is the pic
3A675E0B-B7C5-47DA-B174-7B9F6ED302FC.jpeg
Anyone else encountered such daftness?
 
I don't know about modifications, but a friend bought a Snapdragon. The seller said, "I fitted her out myself. I got wood for free from all over the place"

"I can see that"...

He can't have done too bad a job, though, she kept the boat for 20-odd years.
 
I also have a car radio as well as a car DVD player that will display on my computer monitor of my OpenCPN nav system.

The cockpit nav display is a car DVD display mounted in a stainless steel IP67 box with perspex lid.
 
I think our worst one was the fairly inexplicable "bonding wire" screwed to the tiller. Not because of the wire itself, but because it had been installed through a ply cored deck without any attempt to seal the hole - no epoxy filling, no gland, just a hole drilled and a wire poked through.

I had to cut out and replace the whole section of deck because the plywood had rotted to the consistency of spongecake.

Pete
 
"Don't worry about that, just drill it/fill it/glue it and we'll fix it this winter, let's go sailing"....

It's not so much that that has bothered me. (I plead guilty to the same.)

It's the changes that some considerable effort/time/money have gone into, but which have been carried out without benefit of taste, common sense or thinking it through in advance.
 
Whenever I do a job, whether on board or at home, I always have the spectre of the next owner looking at it over my shoulder and shaking his head. It drives me to perfectionism every time, which can be frustrating and time-consuming but I think its roots go back 60 years to when I was building a model boat and planned to cut corners and my older brother, now sadly late older brother, said "If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well".
 
Whenever I do a job, whether on board or at home, I always have the spectre of the next owner looking at it over my shoulder and shaking his head. It drives me to perfectionism every time, which can be frustrating and time-consuming but I think its roots go back 60 years to when I was building a model boat and planned to cut corners and my older brother, now sadly late older brother, said "If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well".
But the next owner may still gasp in despair and think, “Why did somebody take so much care doing such a terrible thing?”.

We all have different tastes and want different things from our boats. I am still coming across bodges on a boat I’ve owned for 19 years ( and yesterday I was caught by a bodge of my own from the first year of ownership, which I had done quickly and completely forgotten to return to for nine years, so now need a new main hatch).
 
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