Raising the Waterline - Items kept aboard and never used

[holtcl]

hmm- will take a look. These bulbs are MUCH smaller than anything I've seen on the boat before. I am thinking maybe something that the PO had on there at one time or another.

Best,

Cheryl
Cinderella 1971 53 MY

 

[tonytrakovich]

Could the bulbs be for instrument / gauge lights? Those rubber things look like ear buds? Hearing aid of the PO?

 

[holtcl]

Possibly! At any rate, I pitched the plastic thingies and kept the bulbs (you never know!).

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

 

[tonytrakovich]

Funny. The old name on my boat from the PO was Cinderellie.

 

[Avenger]

Possibly! At any rate, I pitched the plastic thingies and kept the bulbs (you never know!).

You want to find out what the bulbs are for, just throw them out. Within a few days some instrument light or indicator will burn out. Always works for me.

 

[holtcl]

Now that's the truth. I've got a storage unit full of misc. boat parts and spares. Almost never pitch anything boat-related!

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

 

[SeaEric]

I had a storage unit full of boat junk too. Then I did the math and realized that i had spent thousand$ of dollar$ storing a bunch of crap that wouldn't bring $100 at a yard sale.

 

[captddis]

Those bulbs are for the original bilge pump indicator lights and sometimes they used them for the synch light and some systems monitors if you had the 4 or 6 point monitor. I have them on my boat too.

 

[Boatsb]

My rule to not carry anything that will not be used for repairs when away from the dock. I figure I wont rebuild an engine on the water. Also depending on the trip I may add more spares and tools. If I'm just running local in the rivers I can take off a ton of stuff and make more room for rum.

 

[holtcl]

Eric raises a good point about the storage unit but it's different being a liveaboard and not having a 'land base' for storage. I sometimes wonder about dumping my unit but then what do I do with my saw horses, larger power tools, rolling tool box, etc. It's a catch 22. You're right the stuff is mostly worthless stuff to anyone but me. I'm in there probably once a week or so for especially when I'm into a boat project.

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

 

[Angela]

Eric raises a good point about the storage unit but it's different being a liveaboard and not having a 'land base' for storage. I sometimes wonder about dumping my unit but then what do I do with my saw horses, larger power tools, rolling tool box, etc. It's a catch 22. You're right the stuff is mostly worthless stuff to anyone but me. I'm in there probably once a week or so for especially when I'm into a boat project.

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

Buy an older, relatively inexpensive cargo van (that does run), load it up and leave it in the parking lot. My big stuff (band saw, table saw, air compressor, etc.) is in there - that's my onsite storage. I keep the smaller power tools in a dock box.

 

[SeaEric]

The problem with that plan at Piney Narrows is - parking is already pretty tight. It could work if you don't mind the walk to the over flow parking. A guy here has an old station wagon that he refers to as his "rolling dock box". I'm not sure where he parks it as it's not here in the lot.

 

[TROUBLE]

Funny, I used to have a Chevy Astro van that i used for the same thing. The lic plates said "DOCK BOX"

Art

 

[JLR]

I took another pass at throwing things out yesterday. I have tons of used, spare stators for the galleymaid pumps. I threw them out under the theory that if they had to be pulled, I would not put them back in. I also threw out used and somewhat rusty strainer baskets, used and somewhat rusty strainers, old shower heads and hoses to the shower heads etc. I did keep several items that were new, but I was unable to tell what they were. I will go over those items with a mechanic and then make a decision whether to dump them or not. But, I did need to use a spare RF switch and immediately replaced it so I am not off the hording of spare parts entirely.

 

[holtcl]

Yeah the van is an interesting idea but would not work for me at Piney, especially given that I just bought a pick-up truck to tow my small boats so now I have 2 vehicles on site. I just figure in the cost of my unit as the cost of "doing business" and add it on top of my dockage as general storage.

I might go through there and do a good rooting around this spring and see if I can downsize into a smaller unit, particularly if I organize it better. Everything's just kind of thrown in there now (but of course "I know where everything is").

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

 

[sandspur1966]

Ha... "Decrapifying" ... love it!

I used to have a storage unit and between the drive back and forth as well as the $$ I came to the same place... math didn't pencil out.

So, with completely goofy logic, I went a different route and bought a new 5x10 ft cargo trailer and fitted it out as a combination storage shed/tool shop. I pay my marina for the yard space it takes up and am in the process of moving everything but my standard tool kit there.

Amazing how quickly it fills up

 

[Hatadoit]

I was "lucky" when, just before I bought my boat, the Repo-Depot came along and plastered a big orange sign stating that the vessel had been reposessed. This, of course spells "free for all" to the great unwashed, so anything not bolted down (and some that was) disappeared in a midnight madness sale that lasted several weeks. sigh.

Of course I have had several years to crapify the vessel since then, so I will spend my pre-launch days this spring, attempting to raise the waterline.

Bruce.

 

[MikeP]

" I have to go to my closet and select a pair of shoes to get rid of so I have a place to set the new pair down."

We filled up the closets a long time ago with shoes. Now we have a "shoe mat" in the salon at the entrance door. That's now double-leveled with shoes. We may need to buy a bigger boat so we have room for shoes…

 

[Sailor John]

Hello.
I'm Sailor John,
And I'm a 'Crapifyer'.
I think I spend ALL summer 'crapifying' our 38' Mad Hatter, then one weekend in November I de-crapify it.
That means the grand piano goes, the 12 person hot tub, the ex-wife, the lost dog...(I'm kidding!)(I never lost my dog...)
So last year, while decrapifying the flybridge, I found way underneath, the head unit for an auto-pilot!
I'd never seen it before. (In fact, I didn't know we had one!) I figured out where it went, found the
leads, plugged it in, held my breath and turned it on...Voila! I now have an auto-pilot! It's a big clunky green thing, but it works and holds/changes course as required!
'Decrapifying' has paid off for me!

Sailor John

 

[jim rosenthal]

This is the problem with things. They accumulate. Like George Carlin's old routine about "stuff". There's no question that there's such a thing as too much of it.