Boat Maintenance for the Technically Illiterate

Bluewater cruisers like Brett and Amanda Campbell often need to rely on their own DIY skills and the materials and expertise of the lands and folks they meet along the way. In Part 1 of this three-part series, Brett shares his top tips to keep fuel injectors clean, barnacles off the bottom and more.

By
Brett Campbell
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This is the original Yanmar 4JH5E 54hp normally aspirated engine supplied by Beneteau. We've done 6,000 hours over the last 13 years. (Photo/ Brett Campbell)
This is the original Yanmar 4JH5E 54-hp normally aspirated engine supplied by Beneteau. We've done 6,000 hours over the last 13 years. (Photo/ Brett Campbell)

My wife Amanda has often asked fellow cruisers the question: Would you prefer to sail with an experienced mechanic who knew little about sailing, or an experienced sailor who knew little about mechanics? As an experienced sailor, I think I’d go with the former. In the last 11 years of living onboard we’ve managed to keep our Beneteau Oceanis 43 Leventeia moving with (very) basic technical skills.

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Boat Maintenance for the Technically Illiterate
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Brett Campbell
Brett Campbell
Brett Campbell has been sailing since joining the sea scouts in Sydney over 55 years ago. He joined the Navy at 17, and after ten years resigned and moved into industry. During this time he sailed in many offshore races, including four Sydney to Hobarts, and cruised NSW waters in his Beneteau 39. He retired at 52 and bought a Beneteau Oceanis 43. After four years, he and his wife Amanda Gilbert escaped the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, spending three years off east Africa, then sailing around Cape Agulhas and across the South Atlantic to Grenada. They then cruised the southern and central American shores of the Caribbean, then Cuba, Bermuda, and Halifax in Nova Scotia. After wintering in Deltaville on the Chesapeake Bay, they sailed through Long Island Sound and are now heading to Newfoundland and the islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence. After seven years, they believe their very slow exploration of the world is about a third of the way through.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Very good points made here and I hate to admit maintenance that I know I should have done and have skipped…
    I even have a SS with a maintenance tab…
    Ok, re-inspired to do better maintenance…
    I suspect the fulltime marina liveaboard is making me lazy…
    The only maintenance I don’t have to do anymore is my old Yanmar now replaced with a 48v PMAC… Laff…
    Fair Winds…

  2. A very thoughtful article on the virtue of maintenance aboard being proactive. One thing that preoccupies me a propos to my Yanmar is the cleanliness of the diesel fuel long before it reaches the injectors, a point made in this article and one that Nigel Calder certainly drives home in his book that Brett cites.

    • In fact, the boat can change shape from sitting on the hard or slowly creeping under rig tension. Temperature also matters. The extent to which the rig can become slack varies with the materials and the design of both the boat and the rigging.

  4. I agree with the first premise, a good mechanic is a blessing. For the 2013 Salty Dawg rally to the Caribbean, we were fortunate to find a fisherman who had been a helicopter mechanic in the military. He made repairs to our dinghy outboard and helped me rebuild a Volvo Penta raw water pump. He topped it off by catching a 45-pound wahoo six days out and filling multiple freezer bags with pieces of the fish. He also cooked some up a fish fry that we shared with other Salty Dawgs when we reached the BVI.

  6. I though the first paragraph posed an interesting question. As an experienced sailor and an experienced bodger (I’ve worked with real craftsman–I’m there is a few areas but nowhere near all!) I think it depends on the length of the trip.

    For a short trip I would take the sailor. I can fix what is necessary if there is someone to tend the boat and lend an occasional third hand. There is no time to teach anything significant.

    For a long trip to remote areas I would give serious consideration to the craftsman. First, he would not be a complete non-sailor; taking someone across an ocean that might not like being out of sight of land is just a mistake. I will have plenty of time to teach sailing and seamanship, since that is what we are doing. There would be little opportunity to teach mechanical skills until they were needed, and a person with no mechanical skills, honestly, has not tried to learn them through life’s many opportunities. At the very least the person should have general mechanical aptitudes, though not necessarily a boat-specific set.

    If I were re-building a boat before a long trip I could go either way. The non-mechanical sailor will have lots of time to learn, if he is interested, and if not, he’ll give up.The non-sailing craftsman will at least endure lots of sailing conversation, and I’d get him out on the water on some boat, just to see how he took to it. So either way.

    I’ve sailed with both sorts. In fact, the important things are how the two of you deal with pressure together, and how well you can pass long hours together. The sailing and fix-it will come along, as needed.