Raising the Waterline - Items kept aboard and never used

[JLR]

As the winter thaw continues, I thought I might start a thread of items we have bought, kept aboard for years and never used. I may start a cleansing process to remove these items from the boat and raise the water line a little. I am not including in this list, safety items like life vests and life rafts that hopefully will never be used. For example, I have had a hand held VHF on board each boat I have owned for the last 30 years. Never used it once. Also, I have added hailers to each boat I have owned but never used the hailer once. There must be a whole list of "sounds like a good idea but never, ever has been used" items that we keep on board but have never used. What's on your boat that could be off loaded to raise the water line a little?

 

[rwappleton]

Can't wait to see the list John!!! I am the same way

 

[bostonhatteras]

I guess I could take off all the second and third bottles of vodka, rum, and jack. On second though, no!

 

[rmatt]

I guess I could take off all the second and third bottles of vodka, rum, and jack. On second though, no!

NO NO Things not used!!!!

 

[johnjen50]

Not only are those items not not used, but aren't they essential to the vessels ability to remain a joy to operate?

 

[bostonhatteras]

Yeah. I must have gone crazy for a moment. Stuff I certainly can do without; huge redundancy of worm drive clamps, boxes upon boxes of stainless screws (the bolts I'll keep), ill fitting scuba gear, triple redundancy of shore power cords, sail makers palm and fids, and most of all 'friends' who always show up empty handed! Now I'm of sober mind. Haha.

 

[MarioG]

Summer clothes and gear off in the winter and winter clothes and gear off in the summer. Also outgrown toy's, books. Also you will save weight removing tools and equipment that have no purpose on your boat. I personally removed a bunch of tools that don't fit on anything.

 

[Angela]

Twice a year, I do what I call "decrapification". Personal stuff like clothng, shoes, ect., if I haven't touched it in a year, OFF it goes. Just this week, I shed years of bottom paint and I wonder what that weight was. Week before that, I got rid of unused clothing. As a liveaboard, every year, my pile gets smaller and smaller because as I bring a new pair of shoes onboard, for example, 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. Once you get down to just what you need, everything is a swap meet if you don't give in to temptation to pile on. I went from a four bedroom house with a closet that measured 20' x 40'. Today, I survive out of a closet of about 20 inches. I'm good with that.

I also keep a cargo van in the parking lot that houses tools I want to have that are necessary when you need that particular tool, but not worthy of keeping onboard and hauling around - band saw, table saw, mitre saw, drill press, router, air compressor, etc., together with extra parts that are over and above the extra parts I keep onboard. For example, am I really going to go through 2 water pumps while I'm out? Probably not - so I keep one onboard and one in the truck. Ditto for AC pumps, toilet parts, etc.

 

[GCSI]

For my Bahamas travels, have been considering taking spare wheels off the boat and leaving in warehouse. I'm thinking that in an emergency, I could get a buddy to fly over required parts within a few days. The real question in my mind is; how "likely" is that particular emergency? By way of survey, who has actually "used" a spare set of wheels complete with a diver change in a remote location?

 

[tonytrakovich]

Three years ago while boat was in the yard, I was installing some new Garmin electronics. While crawling around the boat and looking to make space in the wire chase, I noticed tons of obsolete equipment that had been disconnected and not in service. Loran, old north star gps, old chart plotter, etc. I removed this equipment and hundreds of feet of wire associated with it. PO had installed new equipment and wire and just left old disconnected and in place.

There was also a bunch of spare parts that had not been properly stored and corroded. Spare parts for equipment the boat no longer had. We also have a set of spare wheels and davit extension.

We live in Wisconsin and keep boat in Ft.Lauderdale. We do not have storage in FL so we have to keep a certain amount of spares on boat. Now we have to resist the temptation of loading up with personal gear of the Admiral and 4 kids.

 

[JLR]

I'll add a few more. Boxes of used but seemingly un damaged engine and genset impellers, used stators from GM pumps, pounds of hose clamps, expired flares, old and out of date charts from locations never to be seen again, same for chart books, manuals for items no longer on the boat, clothes that once fit but alas fit no longer etc.

 

[Jaxfishgyd]

Having lived aboard for over 13 yrs now... I can SAFELY say I have removed at least three 55 gal barrels of old wiring and left in unused equipment the three PO's had cut out and left...
Now on the other hand, if I could get the Admiral to let go of some of her clothes and shoes, the waterline would probably go up 4".... But as she's still working and IS the admiral, I don't say a thing... After all, it was HER IDEA to sell the house and move onboard...

 

[Nonchalant1]

As the winter thaw continues, I thought I might start a thread of items we have bought, kept aboard for years and never used. I may start a cleansing process to remove these items from the boat and raise the water line a little. I am not including in this list, safety items like life vests and life rafts that hopefully will never be used. For example, I have had a hand held VHF on board each boat I have owned for the last 30 years. Never used it once. Also, I have added hailers to each boat I have owned but never used the hailer once. There must be a whole list of "sounds like a good idea but never, ever has been used" items that we keep on board but have never used. What's on your boat that could be off loaded to raise the water line a little?

I installed a hailer once and then I used it to tell the Admiral something was wrong with a deck line while at a marina. After that, I was no longer allowed to use the hailer.

 

[dastahl]

Don't forget to take the wire and bronze stuff to the scrap yard. After demo of the electronics and all the GM heads I ran a couple of heavy containers to the scrap yard and walked out with $425. $1.20 a pound for the wire. Not chump change any more.
Skooch

 

[rsmith]

Murphy's law says whatever you get rid of is what you will break on the next trip

 

[lumina]

Hi All,

Ang, I love that word and I'm adding it to my vocabulary, decrapification......

Jim, you are so right, i don't know how many times I've had to buy something I just threw out.

On-going:

1. discarding old wiring and old devices that have been long disconnected.

Things hanging around:

1. 3 spare anchors
2. Rogue Wave WI-FI (new in box)
3. Glasses upon glasses and silverware galore
4. Tons of kitchen stuff (we don't cook), pots, pans, couple of toasters, couple of coffee makers
5. Tons of bottled water
6. Lots of extra moulding and teak wood.
7. 2 sets of 2 person walkie talkie head gear that we never use.
8. Lots of extra soft goods, curtains etc.
9. triple redundancy of shore power cords
10.Old and out of date charts from locations never visited, same for chart books, manuals for items no longer on the boat.

On the other hand, some things disappear on their own like the 30 tape measures I've bought for the boat, or the 300 pens and markers, or paper to make notes on, or box cutters, or the 500 roles of blue tape.....etc.....I think the boat may be doing this to raise the waterline itself..:0

 

[jim rosenthal]

This is edifying to say the least. I'm now thinking of pots and pans I don't use, glassware, etc. I have way more than I need on the boat.

Blue Note stays fairly light, but I could definitely stand to go through her and thin out the spares lockers- I don't really need ALL those hose clamps etc. And I'm carrying a lot of spare filters I don't need for the rather short trips I make.


Maybe not the weight saved, but it would be nice to have more room in the lockers now and then.

 

[Blaine Thorpe]

Having lived aboard for over 13 yrs now... I can SAFELY say I have removed at least three 55 gal barrels of old wiring and left in unused equipment the three PO's had cut out and left.....

I'm going through that now. Everywhere I look, there are wires or hoses hanging loose and not connected to anything. Looks like a big job ahead cleaning everything up.

Before we sold our 36C, I removed a lot of stuff before we left Peoria. When we sold it in Destin, we still had to off load a Dodge Caravan rental full with the rear seats down.

Blaine

 

[holtcl]

I have just about finished the process of my every-two-years decrapifying (great term!) process as well. It was nice to see that I didn't take near as much stuff off of the boat as the last time I did it, which makes me think that I didn't accumulate more than I should.

The thing that I find really replicates is t-shirts. And they're hard to part with when people give them to you. But I thinned mine out by about 1/3 and got 3 bags of "boat rags" to send to the storage unit.

The other thing I was guilty of hoarding was old cel phones. I must have had two of the first flip phones that Motorola ever made. Needless to say, them and their chargers went.

I did find some "unidentified items" that I am wondering if anyone knows what they are. I think these things may go together but am not sure. The second pic is one of tiny little bulbs packed in foam. Thoughts?

Cheryl
Cinderella
1971 53 MY

 

[lumina]

Hi All,

Cheryl,

Those little lights may be for your breaker panel for things like the power on red
lights however I've only seen them in a bayonet base.