Boat...man alive

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch) 09/02/2018 at 22:44 • Filed to: None

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E ven good boats, there is always something borken. yes, borken. With this boat I’d say its about 25% bad design, 25% wear and tear, 50% previous shoddy-ass work. Getting real sick of the last one.

Spent saturday morning doing some finishing touches to some newly fabbed swim platform brackets. These were in the first 25% category, I guess, and are known to break. T he guy that made supplied them to the manufacture warned them about the design and urged them to look into a better design and they passed. Classy. I don’t mind this though because it’ s just part and parcel of owning a boat...things break from use and you have to fix them. Its shoddy work Im tired of.

Electrical skills, plumbing skills, style, common sense. These are all the traits the previous owner lacked. The electrical alone is going to require some serious reworking. Everything works without fault pretty much always , but it’ s all put together like a game of Jenga thats half way in.

In t he latest WTH moment: a few weeks ago I noticed belt squeal...a lot...but I figured it was bilge water sloshing back under acceleration and I thought that a new belt in the spring time would solve it . Season is winding down here and it would keep till then . Kept getting worse and worse though and I noticed steam coming from the engine hatch. I looked and found the problem. The auxiliary heater unit that was installed by the previous owner has a supply of hot engine water in a loop coming from the t-stat housing, the hose to supply hot water goes from there to an exchanger up fronter to supply heat. The PO apparently though that it was okay to not secure that hose in any way shape or form and drape it over the belt drive...

Yeah, it had been slowing wearing a hole in the hose and it had finally sprung a leak, spraying 175 degree water, under pressure, right on the idler pulley bearing (and the belt). Well, that solves the mystery belt squeal noise. I sliced out the hole, applied a brass barbed joint with hose clamps and secured the hose AWAY from danger. Now I need a new pulley and belt. The list of things to put right on this boat is long if I want to do it all well. I can’t stand people who would rather spend money on 22 inch trailer wheels and windows tint than spend it on a proper professional to do quality work.

Its a petty rant, but its my rant damn it.  

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > HammerheadFistpunch 09/02/2018 at 23:32

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I hope this isn't the afformentioned family boat that you're stuck taking care of

AestheticsInMotion > HammerheadFistpunch 09/02/2018 at 23:36

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Is there a Camry of the boat world? All I ever hear is how everything breaks, everything is expensive, etc.  

HammerheadFistpunch > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 09/02/2018 at 23:36

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Aye. We were supposed to all get together via Skype tonight and talk about it but they all forgot and went to a movie instead

CB > HammerheadFistpunch 09/02/2018 at 23:40

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I believe that "boat" is an old Greek word meaning "hole in the water you throw money into".

HammerheadFistpunch > AestheticsInMotion 09/02/2018 at 23:41

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Toyota made a ski boat . Turns out it wasn’t a very good Hull. One or the other I guess.

Good engine though

Tristan > HammerheadFistpunch 09/03/2018 at 00:09

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B.O.A.T.

Break Out Another Thousand (dollars)

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > HammerheadFistpunch 09/03/2018 at 00:21

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How convenient -- for them. 

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > HammerheadFistpunch 09/03/2018 at 00:22

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Other words that are also similar to boat (in my experience) include (but are not necessarily limited to) Fiat, Alfa, Lada and Despair .

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > AestheticsInMotion 09/03/2018 at 00:29

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Nope. The marine environment is brutal.  They always need work, things will always break and they always cost money. Even when you buy a quality boat from a good manufacturer and take meticulous care of them, this still holds true.

We bought this new in 95. It has needed something done, fixed or improved since the day it left the dealer lot. The trick is accepting that your boat will ALWAYS need something, prioritizing your efforts and dollars and not getting too far behind on the list. The boat we had before this one was much worse in terms of reliability, but it was also a much cheaper boat from a lesser manufacturer.

HammerheadFistpunch > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 09/03/2018 at 00:34

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i thought so

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > HammerheadFistpunch 09/03/2018 at 02:44

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Was up at a rented cottage on an island recently that came with a motor boat... an old Grew with a 2 stroke Mercury 50HP outboard.

Grew went bankrupt in 2011 when the owner was killed in a shooting match he had with police:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grew_Manufacturing

Anyway... it’s an old boat from an orphaned brand . Can seat 6 passengers. Max speed is around 30 mph when lightly loaded. With 6 people in the boat, top speed was around 5-10mph. With more than 3-4 adults, it didn’t have enough power to get to the point of ‘planing’.

It was missing the windshield wiper and the high mounted white light it has didn’t work. Though the red/green lights at the bow still worked. The ignition switch is finicky as well. Last year (rented the same place) the battery went dead on me because the ignition stayed on even though I had turned it to ‘off’ and pulled out the key. Figured out how to fiddle with it just right to avoid the problem.

Used $100 (about 65L) worth of fuel and $60 for a 4L jug of 2 stroke oil over the week where I used the boat for maybe 5 hours in total .

QCGoose > HammerheadFistpunch 09/03/2018 at 09:56

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The two best days in a boater’s life are the day he buys the boat and the day he sells the boat.

HammerheadFistpunch > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 09/03/2018 at 10:39

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Yeah I went into this eyes wide open. Im Not mad that boats cost money and need work. ImMad most of it is fixing someone else’s “ improvements".

functionoverfashion > AestheticsInMotion 09/04/2018 at 09:02

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Simple a luminum boat with a tiller-only four-stroke outboard made by Honda or Yamaha. Run stabilizer additive in the fuel and it will just work forever.

Caveat: you can’t leave it in the water unless you have a bilge pump, because it will sink. But if you add a battery and a bilge pump, that’s more stuff to break. Bring a bucket and put the boat on a trailer when you’re done, pull the bilge plug to drain it and there you go.

functionoverfashion > HammerheadFistpunch 09/04/2018 at 09:09

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I know we’ve probably discussed this before; this is why I was so annoyingly picky when I bought a new (to me) boat last year. I bought a truly well-maintained example of a good boat from a manufacturer with the best reputation in the inboard world, and still I’ve done lots of little things to it that would have added up to probably $3k at a dealer in the last 14 months.

TWO of the things were very minor, but both were things that could have caused me to lose use of the boat over a holiday weekend or in the other case, over my week of lake vacation (main toggle switch and cap & rotor, respectively ) .

Hell, just yesterday I replaced a fuel line on the engine because I noticed one of the brass nuts at the connection to the fuel pump was cracked. It wasn’t leaking but... yeah. This is just SOME of the stuff I’ve done in the past year:

impeller change
replaced drive belts
oil change (2)
v-drive and transmission oil change (1 each)
bilge pump
ballast pump (2)
re-route heater hose return line to engine (twice)
heater core replacement
added a battery, switch, charging relay
fuel filter (2)
distributor cap & rotor
main toggle switch ($6.99 switch that disables all electrical in boat, WTF)
replaced stereo head unit
add stern light to tower

And the previous owner really was meticulous. On my test ride, he towed the boat to the ramp with a daily-driven self-maintained 2006 Range Rover, a la Doug DeMuro. I figured that was another good sign.