‘‘Until something breaks’’ is the watch phrase of all sailors.
Homer, AK, 9-Sep-2020 – We’ve been reading, watching, and talking about equipment failures. A typical ocean crossing is 15 to 35 days. On every boat, things break during a crossing. It’s something sailors have come to expect and prepare for. I’ve also come to realize we, as sailors, expect this very expensive equipment to fail after a very short duty cycle.
In small harbors, where we hang around with commercial fishing boats, I try to envision a commercial vessel living with the meantime between failure (MTBF) measured in days of service. The bits and pieces of their boats are up to the task and not generally pretty: Stainless steel in some places, aluminum in others, and galvanized steel wherever that makes the most sense. We rarely see full-chain anchor rodes.
Continue reading “Commercial grade gear”