Gotta love those PO's...

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Flybull

Flybull

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2018
Messages
163
Location
USA
Vessel Make
1983 Trojan F44 FBMY
So after reading thousands of posts so far on Trawler Forum, a fairly common theme seems to be "the PO strikes again"... with some sort of ridiculous prior installation in all manner of areas of the boat. :facepalm:

What are some of the crazy things you've experienced that have been done by prior owners... and what did you have to do to rectify them...???

Posts with PHOTOS get extra credit...!!! :thumb:
 
Been a while, but one of the craziest things was the depthfinder was hooked up to power with speaker wire using wirenuts. Not the usual twist on method, but the wires were stuck into the wirenut then a zinc plated, flat head woodscrew was driven in to keep everything tight, then wrapped in a ball of electric tape the size of a walnut. Somebody did not have a clue.
Oh yea, on another boat, the PO used the wire within the fuel fill hose as the fuel line ground wire!
 
On a previous boat, engine room fire due to undersized lamp cord running the water heater.
 
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Based on so many perfectionists here on TF, some POs are godlike.... :)
 
High Wire said:
Been a while, but one of the craziest things was the depthfinder was hooked up to power with speaker wire using wirenuts. Not the usual twist on method, but the wires were stuck into the wirenut then a zinc plated, flat head woodscrew was driven in to keep everything tight, then wrapped in a ball of electric tape the size of a walnut. Somebody did not have a clue.
Oh yea, on another boat, the PO used the wire within the fuel fill hose as the fuel line ground wire!
Click to expand...

I guess when you lack the appropriate size wire-nut for your inappropriate wiring job, might as well push all-in on stupid... :facepalm:


Not sure I understand the "wire within the fuel fill hose"... ???
 
psneeld said:
Based on so many perfectionists here on TF, some POs are godlike.... :)
Click to expand...


I've already got my eye on a few boats/PO's here for when they finally put their rigs up for sale...

Some to buy and some to stay well away from...!!! :rofl:
 
On my current boat, the headliner in the salon was stapled up using 4+ staples per inch. The salon headliner is 10'x16' in 3 sections- literally thousands of staples.

The windlass wiring was 2 sections of 1/0awg, except for a
1' jumper wire in between which was 8awg.
 
Commander Nomad said:
On my current boat, the headliner in the salon was stapled up using 4+ staples per inch. The salon headliner is 10'x16' in 3 sections- literally thousands of staples.

The windlass wiring was 2 sections of 1/0awg, except for a
1' jumper wire in between which was 8awg.
Click to expand...

PO's attempt at an in-line fuse...??? :banghead::banghead:
 
Flybull said:
I guess when you lack the appropriate size wire-nut for your inappropriate wiring job, might as well push all-in on stupid... :facepalm:


Not sure I understand the "wire within the fuel fill hose"... ???
Click to expand...


He replaced the original fuel hose with wire wound exhaust type hose with the rubber peeled away to leave a couple inches to connect to the fittings. I guess he learned in a boating safety course that the fuel tank had to have a wire connecting the filler to the tank.:facepalm: Its just one of those things you find after you own the boat a while.
 
High Wire said:
He replaced the original fuel hose with wire wound exhaust type hose with the rubber peeled away to leave a couple inches to connect to the fittings. I guess he learned in a boating safety course that the fuel tank had to have a wire connecting the filler to the tank.:facepalm: Its just one of those things you find after you own the boat a while.
Click to expand...

Ok... now I get it.

OMG!!!

:eek:
 
Flybull said:
I've already got my eye on a few boats/PO's here for when they finally put their rigs up for sale...

Some to buy and some to stay well away from...!!! :rofl:
Click to expand...

I can see that.....

When I am done boating....my boat is headed for a dumpster after I strip it.

The parts are worth way more than the total package

Bought it at the price and condition I knew the outcome. And after 20 years, 50,000 miles, snowbirding.....it was what it was, became what I needed, and died an honorable death. Only an idiot in my mind would have tried to bring this boat to yacht standards..but I stay within ABYC standards and my insurance company just accepted my self survey.

Or I might get much of what I paid for it back, but not what I put in it....in labor mostly.
 
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I still need to discover the craziest thing the PO of my boat did as I find one each year.
As an example last spring while redoing my plumbing I discovered that the fresh water pump was wired with 4 pieces of different wires size on a 3 feet length, to save on wire cost he spent money on crimping lol. But all this makes me smile more than anything else, nobody is perfect and I am pretty sure that the next owner, if any, will say that same from me.

L
 
PO wiring nightmares - soon to be a thing of beauty. But to be real, once this is done I am sure there will be someplace for the next owner to point fingers at this PO. So it goes. Nobody is perfect...:dance::dance:
 

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Pack Mule said:
I’m with you Lou . I’ve fixed a bunch of stuff from previous owners . Not sure who did what . But I ain’t gonna dog them here cause heck they could be a new prospect when I’m ready to sell . I’m sure the next owner if any will cuss some of my repairs as well. I’m no shipwright but I do the best I can do. The only repair I think we’re obligated to discuss with a new owner is wherever we used 3m 5200. Each tube should come with little stickers that say “3m 5200 here leave it be”
Click to expand...

Now THAT'S funny... I don't care who you are...!!! :rofl::rofl:


As far as "dogging" anybody out here... that is not the point of this thread. Although some of this is truly comical, it seems most mentioned to this point are electrical, and many of those have been dangerous.

I think bringing them all to light is a great learning experience on what NOT to do for many who may be less-than-experienced in some of these areas.

Never know... a mention of one of these may ring a bell for some owner that didn't realize what he also had on his boat is a real issue.

We could be saving lives...!!! :eek::)
 
The PO of my boat was 88 years old and suffering dementia. Not a single system worked correctly and many didn’t work at all. The boat was priced accordingly. In the end almost every cause of system failure was due to the PO disassembling something and failing to reassemble it correctly. Either that or some one was sabotaging in his boat.

The most annoying thing he did was to repair hose leaks by slitting 6” of hose and clamping it over the original hose. The ones on the engine were easy to spot. The ones hidden deep in the cabinets on AC cooling lines were only found after water started running across the kitchen floor.

The funniest one was the univalve in the hydraulic steering. For what ever reason he disassembled the univalve and reassembled it incorrectly. Result was the boat would only turn to port. It didn’t bother him, when he wanted to turn to starboard he just turned on the autopilot and spun the knob clockwise.
 
Wait a sec! Y’all are making fun of the PO??? You’re the ones who bought a boat with hosed up systems! It should be the other way around the way I see it!
PS... our boat was a huge POS when we looked at it and we still bought it.
 
Not our current boat - that PO was meticulous, a robotics engineer, we love that guy. But the previous owner of our previous boat - I could tell about a dozen hilarious system and maintenance and repair stories - like every single bulb, interior and exterior, from nav lights to salon reading lights, to the refrigerator bulb, was burned out. The fixtures all worked fine with replacement bulbs, but every single bulb had burned out and he had about 10 flashlights in the salon. But to me the oddest and most memorable quirk was not a system issue - it was the large pink underwear collection we found in the aft berth.
 
warfdog said:
PO wiring nightmares - soon to be a thing of beauty. But to be real, once this is done I am sure there will be someplace for the next owner to point fingers at this PO. So it goes. Nobody is perfect...:dance::dance:
Click to expand...



Sadly, I looked at those photos and thought "hey, that's really not so bad":banghead:
 
A DIY sanitation system. The toilet sits on the holding tank. He was very proud of it.


--Peggie
 

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PO upgraded several bilge pumps with a much higher GPH, but then to make it fit the original small hoses, shoved a short few inch section of the larger rubber hose into the smaller rubber hose and then squeezed it down tight with a hose clamp.

When I finally got around to making the entire hose the proper size, and new hull fittings, I was impressed at how much more water the bilge pump flowed out the hull.

Another was PO drilling a hole in the cabin roof to run new big power wires up to the flybridge (routed on the outside of the existing stainless wire and throttle shift cable) tube without figuring out the original wires were fine because he thought they were bad and could not figure out what wire did what.

Another was PO hired a mechanic to replace head gaskets on one motor and the dumb mechanic left out a little oil drain plug from the head, so PO as he motored along, engine was constantly dribbling oil out of the motor into the bilge. When I got the boat, there was about a inch layer of oil floating on top of the bilge water. and that oil had coated a lot of stuff in the bilge and it took months to clean it all up. All because of a missing 1/8" inch oil plug was missing.

Another was PO did not know how to properly replace packing or tighten up the prop shaft gland, so he bought a massive 3 foot long pipe wrench and would twist it tighter without loosening the lock nut. When I first saw boat, it was leaking in a considerable amount of water and spraying the trans-engine in a steady stream of salt water.

Another was PO did not realize he had a big hole in the side of an engine riser, and a lot of exhaust fumes were pumping directly into the bilge. PO said he had to run the bilge blower all the time or the boat smelled funny.

Another was PO said he had not been able to run the generator for the last 5 years and did not know why. The simple reason was the gen battery was bad and it would not even crank.
 
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The two stainless steel boxes contain two banks of home assembled lithium cells. These are connected to the two yellow topped Optimus AGM's with undersized conductors of unknown grade twisted together and wrapped with rigging tape. All of this was monitored by a volt meter.
I think he was a Boeing engineer.
 

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The first few owners of our boat did a great job of upkeep and systems renewal. I’m trying to keep up so the next owner appreciates the dudes that went before.
 
I purchased my first power vessel from Adm. Kinnaird McKee, a retired 4 Star with a submarine background.

My surveyor had to look hard, and I mean REAL hard, to find some nits to pick about the PO's maintenance schedule. Note to others: if you can buy your boat from a 4 Star submariner, you should probably do that.
 

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When upgrading a VHF radio found 3 fuses AND a circuit breaker in the same 12V feed. Judging from the different types of wire, each time the radio had been updated whatever inline fuse had come with the new radio had been *added* to whatever was already there. One of the fuses was even sealed in a cabinet.
 
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