Worst Thing a Previous Owner Did to Your Boat ?

[brian and clare]

The trouble with some of these fixes is that they seem so darn clever when you are off somewhere and need to improvise (EUREKA! "Ill use a ball point pen and some hose clamps to attach those two fuel lines!.. that will get us home!") and then you, they, OK me sometimes, gets back to the dock after the ordeal and you just want a beer and forget about that jury rigged mess waiting to kill you.

Heres one I saw on a boat used to take the boyscouts on week long trips. My buddy was looking to buy it, and I came along to help have a look. Shrouds were attached to a broken chainplate that was attached to the boat by a short length of galvanised wire and U bolt clamps holding it all together. By the look of it it had been that way a while. Apparently nobody was "Thinking of the children" My friend took a pass on the boat by the way. Owner shrugged it off as not a big deal.

[jrd22]

During the survey of our current boat we saw a seacock that had recently been rebedded. Following the hose from the seacock it went to the sink foot pump and also to the watermaker all with double hose clamps. In the run to the watermaker there was a "T" that went to one of those yellow plastic "Y" garden hose fittings with the little, tiny, plastic ball valves in each side for connecting two hoses to. Nothing was connected to either side. The seacock was open - the surveyor and I exchanged looks - and we closed it. Later found out the PO worked at Home Depot. We bought the boat but have a made a VERY detailed examination of all below water fittings.

John

[Alan Wheeler]

I found a frightening one quite by accident. I pulled up a length of LPG Gas line disappearing under the floors through the boat. It was 1/2" line. But I seemed to remember that some ways down the boat, the Gas hose was 5/8". I kept pulling and out came the joint. The 12/" neatly pushed into the 5/8" and a hose clamp around it. That was all. I sat there stearing in disbelief, thinking to myself, What the...!?!?!?

[SVDistantStar]

I havent got into either of my boats deep enough to find everything yet. Ill be doing some major posting soon since my Pearson goes on the hard for a refit. The last few owners of the boat have stuck me as total idiots, so it will be good.

[Zach]

Ground the paint off the interior with an angle grinder... (lots of scars inside...) and did not vacuum out well enough. First night on board was itchy to say the least...

No reefing gear on mainsail.

35lb CQR on deck with a flaked 1/2 inch nylon line... secured with two half hitches.

Solid copper wire for the AC power.

VHF Radio antenna wire cut, and shoved into the back of the AM/FM stereo. Wire was snipped at the antenna, and antenna was gutted internally... didn't have a strong enough signal to reach the dock office!

DC system rewired, crimp connections done with a pair of pliers... not a crimp tool. No shrink connections anywhere.

Atomic Four "just had a tune up" dwell was set at 72 degrees. Fired right up but ran out of steam off idle. Must have gapped it with a phone book...

Throttle cable wasn't adjusted properly, and had a cotter pin securing it at the carb linkage. Lots of play... did not always return to idle. Made docking interesting.

Shifter linkage had one half of the pivot pin. Did not always go in reverse... or come out of neutral.

One engine mounting bolt was tight. Two were missing nuts, and one chewed its way into the engine stringers. Discovered this after wondering why the fresh shaft packing started leaking the same as the old...

Radiator hose on the cockpit drains.

Bilge pump outlet wasn't bedded in at the transom, "wheres all this water coming from?" At the dock it was dry as a bone...

Shoulder on the bolt for tiller was to short, threads chewed out the tillerhead giving some interesting play.

Head does not cycle. Anti-siphon valve vents to the inside... phew.

Electric bilge pump wired with standard crimp connections, laying in the water with no electrical tape... no idea how it worked at all.

Sink drain doesn't. Haven't figured this one out... its a hole straight out the bottom of the boat with no seacock. A wire goes straight through, but water doesn't exit. It doesn't fill with water on the low tack either...

---

I love her anyway... but some of those involved some head scratching.

[Capt Hook]

What our previous owner didn't do !!!

We have wheel steering and there's a deck fitting which you can remove to fit an emergency tiller. After we bought the boat we couldn't find the emergency tiller so I contacted the po to ask if there was one. It was in his garage. "I wasn't having that bloody thing rattling round in the boat!" he said.

[caribnsol]

I know that I am not the most knowledgeable sailor/mechanic around, but one of the first things that I changed when I got my boat was to relocate the shore power connection out of the propane locker .

[drh1965]

Originally Posted by Pura Vida

Neglect, simple neglect

I'll second this one!

[Luders33]

The Edson pedistal throttle lever was either cut half off or broken and very hard to operate. To kill the Penta MD2 you had to jump down into the cabin and reach through a trap door to push the throttle closed. PO said he liked it that way because it prevented accidentally shutting the engine off. I found that it takes at least 5 seconds holding the fuel shut for the engine to even start slowing down... so I think his reasoning was just a way to excuse a needed repair. But to the defence of the PO... I believe he bought the boat without long term plans to keep it.

[Maddog]

The first of many.

The PO did not have a main circuit breaker for the AC shore power. It was wired directly to the plug with just the hot and nuetral, no ground. Surveyor said the boat was a danger to burn to the water line there at the dock.

[Alan Wheeler]

Surveyor said the boat was a danger to burn to the water line there at the dock.

Nah that's not a problem Maddog. You'd never know about the boat burning as you would more than likely be dead from electrocution first.

So to add to my list of PO stupidity, how bout my 2000ltr blackwater holding tank and my 800ltr fresh water tank. It should have been the otherway around.

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

So to add to my list of PO stupidity, how bout my 2000ltr blackwater holding tank and my 800ltr fresh water tank. It should have been the otherway around.

Nah 2000 ltr would be about right.
He was full of it
Or maybe he thought you were and swapped the tanks around

Mike

[Charlie]

When I looked at the hoses for my sanitation system on Ohana I was very impressed to see that they were all new hoses. This was two years ago. I've been searching for the cause of the foul odors emanating from the head to no success. I started taking the boat apart and found that the new hoses from two years ago had stains on them. How did that happen. I looked a little harder oand found that the PO had installed waterline hoses. There are two low spots where effluent sits and those spots were now stained. Well now I have the pleaseure of replacing the lines to the holding tank etc. Repeat after me I love my boat I love my boat.

[SabreKai]

Ok, on my Grampion 26, Brandy:

Removed the sumlog impeller and then slapped some polyester resin Onto the locker bottom and put a 1 foot square piece of thin woven roving over it. Pats it down with his hand. Left the handprint. Loose roving all over. Then went outside and filled the 3/4 diameter hole and the 3 bolt holes with autobody putty. Surveyor is thumping the hull and the 3/4 inch plug falls out.

PO abandoned Brandy about 3 years before, left all his personal stuff on the boat. Left the icebox full of food. Eggs.....

Left a fishing rod with lure under one of the bunks. Surveyor opened his hand on it. Oh well, that cost the PO 25% off the valuation.

Now my current boat is a different story. The PO built her from hull/deck kit and owned her for 30 years. But he did have some strange ideas.

The main water tank is built in under the side deck and can not be reached. The fuel tank is home made welded steel. No fuel gauge. The holding tank and the forward water tank are built in under the vee berth. He glued the half inch plywood down with epoxy and then screwed it down. Access to the engine compartment is designed for a trained snake, I had to find a midget mechanic to have the shaft log checked and the waterpump rebuilt. The access panel was 12x14 inches. Diligent application of a sabersaw opened it up to a more useful 20x18. He installed the hydraulic steering cylindar upside down. Huge airbubble and spongy steering. Oh hey, we have emergency steering. There is a place on the end of the shaft to put the tiller. There is no tiller. And anyone using the non-existant tiller will be living in the hell hole and taking steering command by voice. Access is via the lazzarette hatch. There is no opening for the shaft to exit to the cockpit. I need to open up a hole, and make up a shaft extension and tiller. The opening will be right thru the helmsmans seat. Ouch.

There are other things but these are the worst.

I have my work cut out for me this winter correcting all that.

[Badsanta]

My PO said he always carried bottled water to drink that the fresh water tanks had flavor. Well they were stainless tanks with good access, so I figured it would an easy clean. Well the tanks looked fine inside, but I cleaned and flushed and all seemed well. Then used it again a week later and had a chemical taste, flushed again and a week later had the same. So I finely traced the lines. Easy fix I just removed the green garden hose and it was fine. Ever drink out of a old green hose that had been sitting for a month!!!!