I’m starting to understand the cliches about how boats are holes in the water that you throw money into. I bought the boat and at the time it definitely had some projects that were needed, but then I didn’t do much with it for several years, it now officially has a project list about a mile long, and getting longer. Cleaning, repairs, upgrades, etc.
So far, I’ve found that generally the way projects go is, I decide to work on something that seems simple on the face of it. I take a nice 30 minute stroll to West Marine to get the part that I think I need and discover that there are 10 options for that part and I have no clue which one I need. So, I leave without buying anything and head back to the boat to do more investigations and figure out what I really need. That’s when I discover 4 more things that really need to be fixed before I can get the one done that I started with. So, I then walk back to West Marine with a larger list of things to buy. A fair amount of money later, I am back at the boat and able to actually get started with the project. After getting distracted a hundred times by other things, I get about halfway through the project and have to head back to West Marine to return the things that didn’t quite work out the way I thought they would and buy yet more supplies. Then finally, maybe, a week and 3 trips to West Marine later, I can complete the project. And that’s the simple ones.
Here’s roughly what my project list looked like in April when I started this whole endeavor. Seemed doable, right?
Cleaning:
– Power wash the exterior
– Pull out the terrible rug that is all over the interior
Plumbing:
– Replace the pump for the sink
– Replace the Y valve for the head
Motor:
– Get the cooling system fixed
Electrical:
– Buy a solar panel and use that to charge my phone. Get rid of anything that needs electricity and can’t be charged via USB or doesn’t have its own integrated solar panel.
A few months of work later, my list now looks like this:
Cleaning:
– Repaint the exterior of the boat since the power washer seems to have removed the paint
Plumbing:
– Wire up the fan for the new head I had to buy (since replacing the Y valve was no where close to what I needed to do for the old head)
– Install a new bilge pump
Motor:
– Replace the motor mount
– Get the carburetor fixed
– Connect the controls in the cockpit
Electrical:
– Buy a new battery and figure out how to wire the bilge pump and head to it
– Get a bigger solar panel
If I extrapolate from this trend, I think it indicates that it will be an infinite amount of time before I complete my projects. Time to start deciding what is really required, I guess. More details on specific projects are coming in future posts…