It is said that boats are like women. They have a mind of their own and are in constant need of TLC. If you ignore that last fact, you better prepare for some serious maintenance. If you lack the time, money and energy, you will do well sticking with the more blunt sailor’s saying: ‘If it flies, floats or f**s, rent it!’
Overhauling the engine took up 4 months in total, but that is not where the Exodus to do list ended. A quick grab:
- Fixing the ‘up’ button on our anchor winch remote, 2 times.
- Having the Genoa clew that ripped out during the last passage replaced by sailmakers Lobo and Erica on Tara Vana.
- Switching our cooking gas system from small European to big Panamanian gas bottles.
- Making extra winch covers.
- Replacing the autohelm we bought in Jamaica by a new one and building a super duper weather proof casing. A temporary solution was the installation of an African autohelm.
- Mounting an extra large solar panel (300 W) that guarantees our energy needs are met even on cloudy days.
- Changing the alternator, fixing the alternator we bought in Cabo Verde.
- Replacing the rotten floor board in the dinghy, cleaning up the dinghy canvas
- Mounting the new key for the engine watercooler pump.
- Cleaning up and painting the paintless areas on a 4m glass fibre boat we took over from Steve. Unfortunately our ‘dive’ boat, after receiving its new name, developed a propensity for sinking/ diving under water. So add to the list salvaging the dive boat, its pumps and contents, and resuscitating the 25 hp outboard, twice.
- Sorting out the problems with the wind meter
- Sorting out the slipping anchor chain
- Replacing some of the house batteries yet again. Now all of them are within the same age bracket.
- Fixing the watermaker pump. The watermaker decided to drop production to 1/3 of its normal flow just as Bocas town entered an extended period of ‘drought’. The working parts and membranes in the pump had worn out after 2 years of intensive use and had to be replaced, and a new calibration screw was put in.
- Finding a Jamaican solution to our perished winchbrakes
- Purchasing and mounting a removable staysail / stormsail
- Replacing the faulty Sonar Screen so that the depth soundings overlap on our Ipad charts via the AIS wifi system.
- Having the Genoa halyard loop restitched by Lobo and Erica from Tara Vana
- Mounting an extra waterfilter in case we add rainwater to our tanks
- Hull cleaning for Exodus and the dive boat every two months as we stay in a high fouling area
More repairs and improvements
I admire your courage.