What parts on your boat have lasted way past its intended shelf life?

Rappey

Rappey

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My engine is 55 yrs old, rebuilt 37 yrs ago and been reliably running ever since ! Even more incredible is that the seawater impellor is now 37 yrs old and still shows no signs of cracking or disintegration.
I have seafarer voyager wind and echo sounder . The masthead unit for the wind has been spinning happily for at least 30 years on same cups and wind vane ! Things were built to last back then ?
 
Autohelm AH800 and AH1000 ... both just upgraded with new remote plugs and working great as always.

Lowrance 3500C GPS Plotter ...

eTrex handheld GPS

Perkins 4-107 vintage engine

Sails .... Rigging .... Halyards and general ropework ....

Royal Loo

I could go on ... but that's what is owning an old boat !!
 
Rappey said:
My engine is 55 yrs old, rebuilt 37 yrs ago and been reliably running ever since ! Even more incredible is that the seawater impeller is now 37 yrs old

Things were built to last back then ?
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Perhaps not - your engine (built in 1965) only lasted until 1983 before first needing rebuilding . Perhaps engine building was rubbish in the 1960s but at its peak in the 1980's ?

I don't think I would have dared leaving an impeller in place 37 years . Thought three years was pushing it.
 
Quiddle said:
My flares. 20 years old and, despite slight rust, have never failed when needed yet.
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In 2004 I found my father's old flare stash 20years after they expired. We fired some handhelds/ smokes and found they worked OK. We decided not to try the parachute flares, despite the temptation! Kept dry they do last longer than quoted.
 
Rappey said:
My engine is 55 yrs old, rebuilt 37 yrs ago and been reliably running ever since ! Even more incredible is that the seawater impellor is now 37 yrs old and still shows no signs of cracking or disintegration.
I have seafarer voyager wind and echo sounder . The masthead unit for the wind has been spinning happily for at least 30 years on same cups and wind vane ! Things were built to last back then ?
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What make & model your engine is? I have a couple of old MD11 Volvos sitting in my garage, other i ran just fine fall 2017 when i bought my current boat and transferred it for a couple of hundred miles in a flat calm. I believe that Volvo was manufactured 1981. There is no evidence it would've had its injectors, head , starter or even alternator removed/replaced. I am quite sure it has not run more than 1000 hours since new (probably more like 500 hrs considering boats history), so that particular example is not really a testimony of it being of high quality - rather that it has just been meticulously serviced all those years.
 
Of the stuff I bought when we started cruising in 1972 not much remains. A couple of Avon lifejackets remain in the garage, and one still holds air. The Hitachi RDF radio has gone to transistor heaven and the old Avon Redcrest has been replaced by a newer and better Redstart.

Still on board are a pair of Yashica 7x50s and a mini-compass, though the beta light is now more omega than beta. Probably all that remains are a few small items such as a pair of dividers and my Captain Field's parallel rules, plus an even older folding boat knife with marlinespike.
 
My engine is a morris 1.5d .It came out of a 1965 j4 van ,was rebuilt around 1982 for a boat and became a bmc 1.5
Speaking of flares I still have many dated 1983 that I still have not got rid of.
 
I have a Consol chart, in pristine condition.
It will probably be worth a modest fortune one day, when 'retro nav' really gets going.... In the meantime, I listen out from time to time on 266 kHz and 257kHz for those characteristics 'dots' and 'dashes' that could - and did - provide me a fix or three in the Western Approaches, in just about any weather.

'He knows, ye know!'
 
SlowlyButSurely said:
Avon Redstart 50 years old this year and going strong.
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+1
bought mine from Barnet Camping & marine in 1969
I am still using my Sestral grid compass & my Sestral hand bearing one ( still got the teak box) bought as presents for me from Captain O M Watts in the early 70s.
My Seagull 40+ was purchased 1959 by my father & still goes - but do not mention that on the forum--- They will never believe you :unsure:
 
Most of my first aid kit. OK, plasters and ointments need to be kept more or less in date, but I can see no reason to chuck out sealed dry dressings just because someone had to put a date on them to comply with regulations that don't apply to me.
 
Mainsail is 20 years old now and still works well. Maybe it is to do with the full battons. But a new main would be nice!
 
I sat thinking about this a while. I came up with nothing. Nothing lasts longer than expected, more the opposite. The boat is 20 yrs old. Everything fails far too soon.

On my last cruse both VHF radios failed. So did the service battery, mainsail furler foil, generator heat exchanger, water filter, galley sink pump, a new genset impeller, genset control relay, watermaker pressure gauge, watermaker pipe fittings, watermaker pump seal and the depth display.
 
I have a couple of 3B pencils which date back to when I did tech drawing at college.
Other pencils come and go, those keep re-appearing.
They are quite short now....
 
MartynG said:
Perhaps not - your engine (built in 1965) only lasted until 1983 before first needing rebuilding . Perhaps engine building was rubbish in the 1960s but at its peak in the 1980's ?

I don't think I would have dared leaving an impeller in place 37 years . Thought three years was pushing it.
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My 4-107 was installed years ago ... and it still has same impellor .... and I know the engineer who installed it never changed the impellor from the original installation ...

3 years ??????
 
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