What is (are) the biggest PITA on your boat?

Nostrodamus

Nostrodamus

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www.cygnus3.com
What is it about your boat causes the most consternation or is always going wrong?
Is there something that needs re designing to make it work properly.
Engine, electrics, anchor stowage, heads, dinghy stowage.
Come on have a real gripe.. what is it?
 
Nostrodamus said:
What is it about your boat causes the most consternation or is always going wrong?
Is there something that needs re designing to make it work properly.
Engine, electrics, anchor stowage, heads, dinghy stowage.
Come on have a real gripe.. what is it?
Click to expand...

Without a doubt - the holding tank.
The holding tank is in the bowels of the cockpit locker and all contents have to be pumped overboard. Frequently the pump won't prime itself as it lays flat and small particles of matter prevent the non-return valves from closing properly. The pump pushes and pulls but the same piece of air is moved back and forth. By mounting the pump vertically enough water sits on top of the non-return valve making sure it closes sufficiently enough to become effective.
Last weekend I bit the bullet. I fitted a diverter valve and this season for the first time in a long time I'm expecting a season free of trouble from the holding tank. The toilet contents from the main heads will now divert straight overboard.
Relief at last!
 
Well, apart from the weather.
And tide going the wrong way.
And semi-floating rubbish waiting to grab my propeller.
And fishing floats (fresh crab mmmmmm).
And water skiers in quiet anchorages.

Yanmar 1GM10. Erratic starting, sometimes requiring several pushes of starter button. I keep fixing poor contacts, whereupon problem is cured ... for a while. In cold weather, the engine is more consistent; it is ALWAYS a pain to start. I don't have this problem with my car, why is it a problem with my boat?
 
Going to windward (or not).
Heads compartment too small to wipe yer bum or pull your trousers up.
Deck leaks (hopefully fixed as of last week).

No individual piece of kit that doesn't work though. I'd either fix it or get rid of it if there was.

Pete
 
Preparing the boat for a sail (store away dehumidifier, open seacocks, remove covers, fit removable MOB gear, ensign, fit fenders, remove fenders, fit warps, remove warps, etc.) and do it all in reverse once back.

BTW why don't they do incorporated dehumidifiers? It is a pig to store away every time.
 
Winches.

The interval between services is getting rather short - I rather suspect that they're a little underspecced for the abuse we're giving them.
 
What's with the negative waves Moriarty?

The skipper...Ah, hang on, that's me!:D

1/Cleaning under the engine not quite enough room for my arm
2/Getting water out from under the calorifier.
3/Finding tools in different boxes, I'm the only one that uses them but still they move around when I'm not looking

1 I'm doing something about
2 I'm still thinking of ways to avoid it
3 If I ever catch that damn tool fairy.....
 
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biggest PITA......

.... old foam backed vinyl headlining. When the foam back goes it's just horrid. I've removed it from both quarter berths and have scraped / wire brushed most of the old foam and glue but it is the most god awful stuff.
 
I have given up trying to get wires from below to above the companionway. Like knitting a sock, by remote control, on the dark side of the moon.

I could survive without a keel stepped mast as well. Despite their well known advantages....expensive, leaky, difficult to take down, difficult to stow, and takes up the space where a small heater lives in my imagination.
 
Location of the primary fuel filter. In an otherwise perfectly designed boat, this filter lives at the back end of the space behind the engine. I can't understand why this is so. Access is through a cavernous cockpit locker which needs to be emptied, after which you have to crawl over the two batteries. It will be replaced and relocated to somewhere more convenient as soon as the boat is on the hard.
 
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