The Reliable Boat: Find and Eliminate Hidden Problems That Can Disable or Destroy Your Boat

You cannot buy a reliable boat. Rather you create a reliable boat based on your knowledge and skill. This book shows you how to apply methods based on sound principles gleaned from a lifetime of boating, boat repair and 25+ years of designing ship systems for the U.S. Navy. You can make your boat as reliable as a Navy Destroyer if you have the knowledge, resources and the skill. There is no end to this journey.

According to the author, " A reliable boat is as much a mindset as it is analysis, planning and configuration".

In it you'll learn:

• Why you should make your boat as reliable as possible
• Examples of disasters that could have been avoided and how to avoid them yourself
• What are the correct Captain's objectives
• A "Systems Approach" to a reliable boat. Make a real trade off study of your boat
• What happens in an emergency and why you need a plan
• One striking fact that NIST found during a study of the 9/11 Twin Towers disaster that reveals how your brain works in unfamiliar, emergency situations
• How to prevent an emergency; Fire, Flood, loss of capability, MOB
• Is a first mate really necessary?
• How to make emergency repairs
• Why and which systems should you monitor on your boat?
• What to do if you lose an engine or a prop
• What to do if you run aground
• Why two $75 bilge pumps are better than one $150 bilge pump.

And much more.

After Boating for 50 years with all types of boats, old and new, mostly power boats, you end up with lots of experiences good and bad. You learn that if you leave anything up to chance eventually anything will happen. You have to design out the problems you can with redundancy, protection and quality. Then plan for the worst, when the worst happens you are prepared and the consequences will not that bad because you have a plan. For almost 30 years I designed military systems at General Electric and Lockheed Martin. Most of those were US Navy projects. Radar, SONAR, automated ship systems, automated collision avoidance systems, ship's bridge configuration. I worked on the the Navy's most advanced ships created to reduce manpower by increasing automation. One thing I know about Navy ships, they are designed to run and keep running under all but the worst wartime conditions. Every known potential issue is dealt with in the design and operating plan. There is little chance for a Navy ship to be stranded; except of course the occasional "Act of God". That is beyond my scope.