Off-Water Skills.

This boating lark isn't just about sailing, there are other things you get to learn along that way, especially if you're lacking in the funds dept. 

The electronicy stuff in the previous blog illustrates one element of this. Although I'm lucky in that I've always been handy electrically and electronically, my first job at 16 was as an electronics test assistant. 

I then moved from electronics and analogue "computers" (anyone remember those: lovely feedback loops and servos) to digital electronics, networks and computing. Around the same time I did a Ham Radio course, so I know a bit about Radio too. 

I've always been handy with engines too, from an early age with 2-stroke mopeds as a teenager which then translated to 2-stroke outboards.

Fibreglassing is another skill I've picked up, although I'm still a bit reticent about repairs under the waterline. They've held up, but I still worry. :-)

Of course there's the usual woodworking and metalworking skills learned in school <gulp> 40 years ago.

So along the way I've picked up a few skills. Pretty necessary when you're a bit skint. 

Last weekend I was sewing. I learned that skill when I was about five or six, taught to me by my Mother. Albeit with a machine, but I re-stitched the spray hood for the boat. The old stitching had degraded and the panels were coming apart.

I know more about using that sewing machine than the Missus! All the different stiches, tensions and stich sizes. I've used the lot!

But looking back, it seems I've picked up the skillset required to do most things on a boat. Being skint has had a bit to do with it and because mechanics charge a lot more than I earn I also started out fixing cars once the family outgrew the bikes. I well remember I but my car into a garage for fixing, charging a substantial amount for something I thought I could do myself. After that first encounter I vowed to do as much as I could myself. 

When I had my powerboat I did all the work to make it CE compliant for the RCD. All I needed was a company to verify the work was compliant and issue the necessary paperwork. It's probably one of the few American powerboats out there in the UK that is fully RCD compliant. 

But I look back and think of all the things I've accomplished when I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in and it does fill me with a warm sense of satisfaction that I could do them. I guess most boaty people that do their own work get the same feeling too. 

But I do wonder at the generations coming up after us. There seems to be no instinct to repair or replace. I know over in America at the moment there is a battle over the right to repair various bits of equipment. Manufacturers seems ever more hostile when it comes to customers who have bought (and supposedly own) their products to have the ability or even the right to open them up and delve in to repair the fault. 

Just think if it applied to boats and you had a leaky hull fitting: "Sorry sir, you can't fix that even though your boat is at risk of sinking".  Well what about the Marina mechanic? "Sorry sir, he's not accredited with the manufacturer of your boat: he can't touch it either". "I'm afraid you are going to have to either get the manufacturer's mechanic out to you, or haul the boat out and transport it by road to the nearest registered repair facility, none of which are located on the coast". 

Yeah, I'll stay thankful that we are able to repair our old boats ourselves as long as we are able. 

I'll revel in the thought of using a lifetime of self-taught skills just as much as the use of a decades-old, familiar tool.