Beyond all the folderol of sanding and stripping, buffing and waxing, varnishing and painting, refit time is perfect for creating an essential item for every boat: an owner’s manual.
Chances are that you never bought a car—even a very used one—that didn’t have a dog-eared manual stuffed in the glove box. If you did find it missing, then spending a couple of bucks online would solve the dilemma of that unmarked switch on the dashboard. But boats? I’ve never bought a boat, new or used, that had a manual. Ever.
Boatbuilders take the easy way out by tossing all the various parts and components manuals or service bulletins into a drawer, often in the galley, sealed in plastic. Previous owners often follow suit, adding loose papers into the same drawer.
So, when you need to know what the maroon wire going into the grimfackle does, you have to paw through piles of disorganized paper. If you need to know what the oil pressure gauge should be showing, another search. Finding a parts list for the head or a list of authorized repair shops for the VHF radio means rooting around in that mystery drawer.
Start your organizational project by, well, organizing. Sort all the papers into categories that you can understand: engine, electronics, galley and so forth. As you go, keep notes of the missing items.
You can often track down these items on the internet, often on manufacturers’ websites. Be sure you get the specifics right. Don’t just look for “9-kW Onan generator manual.” Instead, use the ID plate on the generator to determine that you need a manual for the MDKDL-IP Onan genset.
You can improve your owner’s manual by gathering all these numbers on one page, which helps with future identification for parts, or giving information to service techs so they can bring the right parts and tools.
To keep this project reasonable, I’ve always had two owner’s manuals: one for the urgent needs, and another for everything else. The latter includes brochures, catalogs and parts lists that I summarized in the first notebook. For example, my second “everything” book has a worldwide list of repair facilities for various systems, while I copied the locations for my usual cruising waters in my “primary” book.
Don’t be shy about adding photos to your manual, and annotate them liberally. During haulouts, I would photograph all the underwater gear. If I bent a prop and had to replace it underwater, I would know that it takes a 15/16-inch wrench to loosen the prop nut.
I once sailed on a long ocean race aboard a yacht that had a go-to book with photos and details of the masthead. If I had to go aloft (which happened daily), I would know not only what to expect, but also what tools to stick in the bag of the bosun’s chair. That book eliminated the need to shout down from the masthead to “send up a larger wrench!”
Other people may need to use these manuals you’re making. A guest may not know that spare fuses for the electronics are in a specific salon drawer, or that the flares are in the navigation table. What questions would your family ask if you were too busy to chase something down?
This brings us to checklists. As a pilot, absolutely everything I do in the cockpit is covered by a checklist: pre-start, takeoff, before landing, after landing, shutdown. This process may seem embarrassingly simple, but even if you don’t have memory problems, you can find yourself forgetting things. I won’t even tell you how many times I’ve forgotten to put the drain plug in the stern of the tender before launching it. Keeping a checklist in the manual makes it accessible for the entire crew if you’re off-watch and napping.
Choose how you want to organize your manual. I used three-ring binders because I don’t entirely trust electronics to store that information. But no matter how you make the manual, use it. Your manual is useless if you don’t avail yourself of it regularly, and it’s a hindrance if you don’t keep it updated as you change wiring, plumbing, systems or stowage locations.
Trust me on this: There’s nothing more satisfying than thinking the oil pressure seems a bit high, and then opening the manual and knowing in an instant that I don’t have a problem.
This article was originally published in the April 2024 issue.
