Why I don't trust boatyards

[Tim R.]

I tend to do everything myself. I only use a boatyard for hauling and mast stepping/unstepping and then only with a trusted yard while I am present.

I was reminded last night why I am so paranoid.

An otherwise respectable yard made a huge mistake while commissioning my friend's boat this year. They actually left an unterminated bare wire laying in her sail locker attached to the battery switch output. So every time she selected battery one or two this bare wire was hot. The other problem is that they only connected one battery to her OB for charging. The connect from the OB should have been made to the battery switch output so she could select her charging destination.

The ironic part is that they were also supposed to store her OB inside and just left it on the boat. So disconnecting the wires from last fall was not even necessary.

I reconnected everything properly for her and labeled the cables so future yard monkeys might, just might, get it right next time.

 

[kloudie1]

Sooooo.. ya think they might take the time to read ?? There probably are good yard hands somewhere... I have seen only a few at a yard in Pensacola..

 

[Tim R.]

I know of a couple but so many young unskilled cheap workers being hired these days.

 

[wetass]

I had a real bad experience several years ago where I was in a hurry to get the boat back in the water and instead of doing the work myself (I had a ton of projects to finish up before launching in less then a week) I asked the yard if they could "lightly sand around my strut and add a layer or two of epoxy and cloth around the strut to hull joint to prevent water from getting in". SImple enough job - how could it go wrong? The bronze strut and putty had separated a bit, and after haul-out you could see it slowly form a tiny droplet at the edge of the strut/hull joint after several minutes - Strut was still well seated and completely solid, I just didn't want water seeping up in that joint.

Well, I come back the next day to find they had taken a sawzall to my hull in an attempt to find the INTERIOR leak - WTF?????? I had a gash 3" wide x 1' long athwartship across my hull directly in front of the strut. Can you find a more difficult place to repair????And guess what - there was no interior leak!!!!! Well, needless to say, I now had to have the engine moved, the fuel tank moved, the strut removed, the hull rebuilt, strut and engine aligned, on and on. I had a naval architect come in to review what needed to be done and an outside outfit come in to do the remainder of the work since I didn't trust the yard anymore. It was a mess and delayed me another 1.5 month. Its all better now, but I am even more set on doing my own work, or at least being able to supervise what is being done. And I will never ever go back to that yard. At some yards, monkeys would do a better job.

 

[Tim R.]

"The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare"

I am sure this applies to boat work in some way.

The thing that really pisses me off is that my wife crews on that boat and that yard put her life in danger.

 

[Rich Stidger]

"No job is so simple it can't be screwed up."

 

[Stu Jackson]

NOW I finally get it

"No job is so simple it can't be screwed up."

One way: Have a yard do it and screw it up, then pay to have it repaired, usually eight to twenty six times the original cost

DIY Way: Screw it up once, figure out the fix, fix it yourself. Time involved: three. Expense? Time (it's a boat, that shouldn't count) and Materials X2 (only at the worst).

Wonder why not everyone does DIY?

I only farm out the BIG stuff, like new standing rigging. If I can get to it, I can usually fix it.

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

I look at it a little different

Admittedly I am a relative newbie to ownership compared to some here. We owned our C&C 24 for 4 seasons (bought of my uncle who owned since 84). And we are now on our 1st season with the new boat.

The only job I have paid someone to do is the cutlass bearing. I had planned on doing this job but when I read MaineSail's post on lap fitting the shaft after removal, I quickly realized that this was a bit bigger then I wanted for my first project on the new boat. I looked into buying a strut pro to do the job with the shaft in place but the marina where the boat was had the tool and did the job for $240; the strut pro would have cost me $350. Other then that I have done all my work and trouble shooting by myself with a some help from people on this and sailboatowners.com and some friends from the dock.

My reason for doing all my own work is that I want to know the systems the best I can so that when something goes wrong I know how to diagnose the problem and fix it.

Also when it comes to the work the yards do, I just don't trust the quality or price. One guy at the dock had the yard store and winterize his outboard for this Catalina 25. The yard was supposed to change all fluids and do a tune up. When he got it back for the next season, it was obvious that all the yard did was put it in a minimally heated garage with the others. The lower end oil was spent and milky, the impeller was no good and the carburetor needed to be cleaned. When the same guy upgraded to an Ericson with an inboard diesel, he again paid the yard to do the winterization. Again they did nothing. This time it is causing problems with his engine that was rebuilt 2 years ago.

Bottom line for me is to just do it ourselves.

 

[Dan Johnson]

"Take time to read..." Claude

May require them to be ABLE to read--something that seems questionable among some yard folk I've encountered lately.

The guy that was tying up my boat in a slip after it was splashed admitted that he didn't know where to check for thru hull openings on sailboats, despite the diagram left on my nav table top showing all their locations.

But, he figured out how to charge me $15 to tighten my shaft log so it didn't "leak" any more!