Key to long term remote area cruising is the ability, willingness, materials and parts necessary to effect repairs. If you’re in the habit of paying others to fix everything and feel no motivation to learn how to do it yourself, then stay close to home. There’s plenty of pleasure and enough adventure for some just living in a marina with the occasional weekend or longer holiday excursion. For those of us who choose to expose ourselves to the hinterlands, we better be prepared to fix it ourselves or hang out with some really capable and helpful friends.
Last year I got to remove the sail drive leg and replace a spline coupling. We did haul out in a good yard, but they had nobody available to help. Having a repair manual and speedy internet connectivity made the difference, and fortunately a friend of a friend had brought the necessary parts in her luggage. This wasn’t a repair that anyone should ever have anticipated requiring – a factory defect that took 11 years to rear its ugly head.
A couple days ago I built a new anchor bridle. I had the 3-strand nylon rope and thimbles and some chafe protection tubing, just had to find time to do the job before we really needed to replace the last bridle I built. They don’t last forever, you know. We replaced our anchor chain in 2019 with very high quality Acco high strength galvanized steel, but the warm South Pacific waters have been eating the galvanizing away. Soon we’ll be where we can remove the chain and have it re-galvanized, but first I’ll have to measure the links to determine if too much material has rusted away. Surface rust doesn’t really reduce strength unless it goes on for too long, but it sure does make for a mess every time we weigh anchor.
One of the most important thing to keep around is a variety of adhesives. Several are absolutely magical - JB Weld makes 2-part epoxies that will stick darn near anything together. Sikaflex and 3-M both make some great stuff as well. Recently I’ve used JB Weld “Steel” to repair our 12-meter Airush Union kite, and it stuck to the plastic tubing just fine. My Kiwi pal Perryn on SV Due South uses the fast cure version to repair stand up paddleboards and he notes it sticks great to vinyl and remains a little flexible as well – just what the doctor ordered. I’ve got tubes of 3M 5200 fast cure adhesive that I’ve used to repair our slowly dying Red SUP – even with good care a vinyl SUP or dinghy doesn’t last long in the South Pacific sun. Yesterday I spent about an hour gluing flip flops and hiking shoe soles back on using 3M 5200. It seems that the adhesives used in a lot of footwear simply can’t stand up to heat, humidity and salt air / water exposure. All our cruising friends have expensive flip flops or running shoes they’ve had to glue back together using Sikaflex or 3M products. It’s not that we can’t afford to buy new shoes, there are simply no shoes to buy out here so we have to keep “running what we brung”. In a few days I’ll be repairing some dinghy joints with 3M 5200, as some of the Hypalon overlap to the fiberglass hull is coming loose. Bad form to have the dinghy disintegrate while underway.
I recently bought some stock in the Crocs company. Not all their shoes are horribly ugly anymore; these days they make some great looking footwear. What we’ve learned out here over the last few years is that Crocs don’t fall apart from the sun, heat, humidity, salt water, anything. They do eventually wear out, but they last a long time. They’re also about half the price of the Olakais, Reefs, Keens, and other fancy flip flops we’ve also purchased and worn over the past few years. The Keens have done pretty well, but Crocs are kicking ass. I don’t know how the Crocs designers and manufacturing engineers do it, but their stuff just laughs at this environment. Their footwear is comfy, durable, and these days even fashionable. Peter Lynch always advised to buy stock in companies you can understand.
We're rockin' our Crocs!
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