Trust me.. I'm a professional….
If you ever hear that phrase, I suggest you take it with a grain of salt.
Especially when you don't have some first hand experience as to the person's actual skill and attention to detail.
Case in point.
1) The keel system on Stormwatch, was serviced just before we purchased her.
New winch, cable, etc.
2) When sailing her, we occasionally found that the cable seemed to catch on something when being lowered the last few turns. "Clunk… clunk…" then the winch handle went slack as the keel was fully lowered.
3) I'd always felt that the boat was making more leeway than I expected.
On one long 5 hour tack this summer… I decided to have a quick look, while the cable was fully extended.
SURPRISE… the keel was NOT fully down.
The occasional clunk sound was the cable snagging on a nut/bolt protruding into the keel winch drum.
Depending on luck, the cable would temporarily catch.. or not… as it was lowered.
But once lowered enough, it would always catch on the nut/bolt, preventing the keel from lowering fully.
Easy fix… remove the two bolts that secure the end of the cable, and install them correctly, with the
rounded heads inside the drum.
Ok… One bolt oriented the correct way…. one more to go.
First the "professionals" at the yard where the previous owners kept their boat, had the flexible furler rigged wrong, now they can't figure out how to install a cable on a winch.
Lesson: There are a lot of VERY talented and skilled professionals out there. But don't assume that ALL the people getting paid to do work, actually have the skill to do the job correctly all the time.
Every shop has apprentices/rookies, who don't have the skill and experience, but are working on customer's boats/cars/houses etc.