Car projects and boat projects don’t even compare
Issue 87 : Nov/Dec 2012
When my fiancée, Jennifer, and I returned from our 11-month cruise from New Hampshire to the Bahamas aboard our 36-foot sloop, Sheliak, we were excited to be stationary for more than a few days or so and ready to embrace our new home-port-based life with vigor. High upon our “to do” list was wheels. We had plenty of bicycles, what we needed was automobiles.
Storing a car in the winter in New Hampshire is no easy task. Jen’s Jetta had weathered fairly well, but we were told the Miata had been “buried so deep in snow you couldn’t even see there was a car there.” Jen’s parents tried starting it a few days before we made landfall and had no luck — a trickle charger couldn’t coax the battery into even lighting up the dashboard.
“No problem,” I thought, as I signed the $110 credit-card slip for the new battery at the auto-parts store, “she’ll be up and running within the hour.” Replacing the battery was easy, despite the complex venting system they require you to rig on them these days. With a big smile on my face, the hood open, and Jen’s dad watching, I sat inside and turned the key. The starter turned sluggishly, but the engine came to life. Then, rather abruptly, smoke began to appear and with frightening speed thickened and billowed out in great black puffs. “Shut her down!” Jen’s dad roared. I killed the ignition.
We identified the problem as a “frozen” alternator. This means “rusty” alternator. Since we are cruising sailors who have been away for almost a year and consequently aren’t flush with cash but are blessed with the tenacity to think we can fix everything ourselves, I dove right into the job. And so ensued a two-day automobile-repair job that, because of such close proximity to our sailing trip (rife with boat projects), provided a lucid contrast between the pleasures of working on an automobile in comparison with the downright masochism involved in working on a boat, especially one of the more “mature” kind — Sheliak is a 1980 Mariner 36.
A car stays put
When you’re working on a car, it is not moving about, doggedly trying to upset your tools and thwart your attempts to get a handle on the exact item you’re operating on. In fact, that is precisely why you are working on the car, because it is not moving.
The boat, on the other hand, seems to have a mind of its own and is decidedly against whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. it will seize with triumphant joy any opportunity to lurch in a boat wake and spill your sockets into the bilge, just at the crucial moment when you’re pinned helplessly against something cold and hard, and preferably with your face pressed into something oily or moldy.
You can see and touch
When working on the car, you have the luxury of being able to both see and touch what you are working on.
On the boat you have a choice, plain and simple: you can either see what you are doing but have no way of getting a hand close to it, or you can get a tool on it but have no visual information whatsoever about what is going on while that tool is in contact with the offending item. On its behalf, I will admit that the boat will sometimes allow a foot to be used in some cases or permit eye contact if you hold your head at an impossible angle.
Parts aplenty
Then there is the challenge of parts. When working on the car, you can go to the parts store as many times as you like, gaze at all the different types and brands, make price comparisons, and probe the clerk for helpful hints about the job. The stores even sell maintenance books for your exact model with step-by-step instructions for fixing almost anything on the vehicle.
The boat, however, will choose to have something go wrong in precisely the part of the world where finding parts will be the most difficult and costly proposition possible. It runs calculations of the improbability of finding a marine supply store and the likelihood of extortionate import duties on marine product shipments,
then springs into action with blown cooling hoses, failed couplings, or obstinate refrigeration systems. On occasion, it will go so far as to seek out weather information to ensure the quest for spare parts is undertaken in difficult, even treacherous conditions. In fact, finding parts may become so daunting that — once you have them within reach — you’ll irrationally buy three times what you need, despite the fact that they cost more than five times what you would pay for them back home. And that’s not the worst of it. You’re often absolutely certain you have one of the needed spare parts on board, but due to the chaos that reigned when you were packing and storing gear, you have absolutely no idea where it is . . . even though you can be completely sure that it is within 36 feet of you at that precise moment.
The kindness of strangers
It is an unspoken rule, whether aboard the boat or in the driveway with the car, that once you get into a project, a neighbor will stop by to lackadaisically critique your work and let you know that everything you are doing is substandard. But that is where the similarities end.
On the car, you can hold a polite conversation while continuing to work.
On the boat, you are likely to be in some dark, cramped space surrounded by piles of gear you’ve had to unstow before you could get in there. With half the boat’s contents strewn between you and the outside world, there is no hope of continuing your job without seeming like a callous recluse.
The neighbor in the driveway will poke about for a bit, but at some point will actually leave. He may even return (if you are at it for a really long time) with a beer or some other token of brotherly commiseration.
On the boat, the guy will hang around and begin to ask you about everything on the boat except the thing you are working on, suddenly taking an interest in your Sta-Lok fittings, canvaswork, and windlass mounting. Worse yet, he might even drop subtle hints about your inhospitality in not offering him a beer. I’ve heard statements like, “Boy, sure is hot out. Kind of day where a cold beer is like a taste of heaven . . .”
Peace of mind
And finally, when the automotive project is complete, you get to instantly test your repair efforts by simply turning the key and going for a jaunt around the neighborhood.
On the boat, you start it up and watch and listen, but you won’t feel at ease until you have put at least a couple of hundred miles or more of sea under her. Even then, you’ll still make paranoid inspections of your work for months to come. This obsessed behavior will only be halted when the boat finds it within her heart to offer you yet another (probably bigger) problem to take your mind off the original one. And look at that, we’re in the middle of absolutely nowhere again, Honey.
So why do we do it? Because, deep down, we know there is no other sense of freedom and complete satisfaction to compare with that made possible by simply setting sail.
Joshua Carroll lives aboard his Mariner 36 sloop in New Hampshire where he directs the Seacoast Sailing School and continues to race competitively (on other people’s boats). He has a Ph.D. in natural-resource management and is currently developing a college course in the Bahamas around water recreation and tourism issues. He is also a professor at Southern New Hampshire University.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
