A Boat Nut’s Christmas Wish List

While you’re comfortable at home reading this, at the North Pole, Santa is driving the elves hard to meet their Christmas deadline: more overtime than ever before, shorter eggnog breaks, no cavorting with the reindeer in the snow. “It’s more hectic every year,” said Mrs. Claus in an online interview. “If things keep on like this, soon Santa will have to outsource some of the toys.” Make Santa’s life even busier—send him a Christmas list of things you want for your boat, one for each day of Christmas. Elves can’t build this stuff, so the Jolly Old Elf will have to shop at the chandlery at Svalbard instead. Send your list up the chimney ASAP so he gets it in time, and you won’t be disappointed on Christmas morning.

On the First Day: Stability

Nobody likes boats that roll like an ornament the cat’s knocked off the tree. Keep your boat steady by asking Santa for a stabilizer. There are several manufacturers, but Seakeeper is the best-known; everybody seems to want one, and more and more high-end boats feature them as standard equipment. There are Seakeepers to fit boats of all sizes, each using a gyroscope to offset and dampen rolling. They are relatively straightforward to install, too. If you don’t want a gyro, ask for active stabilizing fins; they are more complex to install and don’t work as well (if at all) at anchor or while drifting as a gyro, but will do the job underway. Stabilizers can change your boat from being jittery as a reindeer on December 24th to as calm as the same beast in July. It’s a major investment, but one that pays off big time, especially if you expect to keep your boat for a few more years.

On the Second Day: Cool Air

It’s cold now, but won’t be in July, so how about finding an air conditioner under the tree? Your boat will be a lot more comfortable on those hot summer nights, and A/C might add to your resale value when it’s time to move up. Reverse-cycle (aka heat pump) A/C will warm things up on the cusp of the season, too. If you already have A/C, but it’s a few years old and not quite up to the job, ask for a newer, more efficient model, and an ElectroSea or similar system to keep the water lines clear of barnacles and other gunk. It’ll save maintenance and prevent breakdowns.

Third Day: A New RIB

What makes cruising more fun than a functional tender that allows folks to go ashore, to the beach, or boat-hopping through the anchorage? For this, you can’t beat a RIB: It handles better than a pure inflatable, is more stable, cuts through chop and is overall a better choice than a dinghy that fits in a bag. Add an electric outboard so you don’t have to bother with gas cans. And your kids will love riding around in it. It’s more fun than galloping Rudolph across the glacier.

Fourth Day: Davits

Don’t tow that new RIB, or any dinghy; you’re just asking for trouble. Carry it on board where it’s safe. The best place is on the foredeck or cabin top if you have the space, but regardless of location, you’ll need a davit. There are a bunch of nice hydraulic models that will fit in Santa’s sleigh, any of which will make lifting the RIB a snap. Or install a pair of manual davits on the transom—they’re less expensive, almost as easy to use, and you can find them to fit any boat. Just make sure the dinghy can be hoisted high enough to avoid being swamped by your own stern wave when you drop off plane—often a problem if the dink rides on the swim platform.

Fifth Day: Corrosion Isolation

Galvanic corrosion can do lots of damage to expensive underwater metal. The problem is often caused by connecting to the marina’s grounding circuit via the green wire in your shore-power cord. Your best defense is an easy-to-install galvanic isolator or, even better, an isolation transformer. A galvanic isolator blocks low-voltage current through the green wire without removing ground protection if a high-voltage short develops; an isolation transformer replaces the hard-wired electrical connection with induction coils. No connection means less chance of galvanic corrosion.

Sixth Day: Thrust

Are you still docking without a bow thruster? Come on into the 21st century with the rest of us: Adding a thruster isn’t that big a project if you hire pros who know what they’re doing. Preventing one bad docking experience will likely pay for it, too, and keep you off Santa’s (and your significant other’s) naughty list next year. All but the smallest boats are fitted with thrusters as standard equipment today, so get with the program and add one. It’ll make docking less of an adventure.

Seventh Day: Joystick

Make this the Christmas that Santa brings not only joy to the world, but a joystick for your boat. Joysticks go with thrusters like eggs go with nog: The two systems together take most of the angst out of docking, once you get the hang of them. If your boat has electronic controls, there’s probably an aftermarket joystick system that’ll work, or one from your engine builder that can be retrofitted. Choosing and installing joystick controls requires know-how, so check with a qualified technician to determine if there’s a system that will work on your boat—and ask Santa for that one specifically.

Eighth Day: Windlass

Compared to a joystick, installing a windlass is child’s play, and it will make anchoring a lot more fun. You can carry a bigger anchor and more chain for greater holding power, and not worry about springing your spine when hauling it back aboard. “Experts” used to recommend a short length of chain, often as little as six feet, between anchor and rode; today, smart skippers carry at least 25 feet—I suggest 50—to improve their anchor’s performance. A windlass makes hoisting the extra weight a non-issue. Having reliable ground tackle, and not having to spend every night in a marina while cruising, will soon pay for the windlass, too.

Ninth Day: Radar

On that foggy Christmas Eve, do you think Santa could actually see by the light of Rudolph’s nose? I doubt it—I think he had radar in his sleigh, and you should have it, too. When the fog rolls in, “seeing” what’s around you, whether other vessels, buoys, sea marks, etc., takes away a lot of the tension. Most multifunction displays can accept input from a radar, or you can install a standalone model. A basic 4 kW radar will do the job, but one with more power will paint a clearer radar picture, even if you can’t mount the scanner high enough to get the maximum range. Choose a model with MARPA (Mini Automatic Radar Plotting Aid), to help you keep track of approaching vessels, a handy feature in areas with heavy traffic. Add AIS and you’ll have a nice package.

Tenth Day: Shade

The older you get, the more you regret not using sunscreen. A Bimini top isn’t enough: Adding a cockpit sunshade, or one over the foredeck, or both, to prevent catching too many rays will pay off in the coming years. There are standalone shades that stretch between uprights stuck into rod holders, complex shades that roll away under the hardtop and shades supported by bows that fold back like Biminis. Disappoint your dermatologist by staying out of the sun.

Eleventh Day: Underwater Lights

Fishermen use underwater lights to attract fish at night, but for most of us they serve no real purpose. However, filling the water surrounding your boat with multicolored neon-hued light is too cool for school; it’ll make you the star of the marina. (OK, some folks will hate it and decry you as a Philistine, but do you really care?) The lights are affordable and easy to mount and wire. You can place a single light midships on the transom, one or two to port and starboard, or fill both sides of the boat with a rainbow of color—whatever floats your boat. Don’t be surprised if many other boats in the marina have underwater lights, too—it must be very confusing to fish. But all the megayachts have underwater lights, so why shouldn’t you?

Twelfth Day: More Juice

Your boat probably uses more electricity now than when she was new, thanks to all the stuff you’ve added—like the electric outboard for the RIB that needs charging even when you’re anchored overnight, the underwater lights and the radar. And the Seakeeper you asked for doesn’t run on air either! Keep your circuits fully powered and your batteries charged by either installing a standalone genset—the traditional, albeit expensive and complex, solution if you need alternating current while away from shore power—or upgrading your engines’ alternators to higher-output models, if you can get by with just DC juice. The buzz today is switching to lithium batteries, but that involves completely re-engineering the 12-volt system, something even Santa might shy away from. And it costs a bomb. Instead, stick to conventional battery chemistry, but add amp-hours to cover the added demand.

Bonus Day: A Corrected Compass

Santa has Rudolph to guide him, but you need a magnetic compass—a usable one that’s big enough to see clearly from the helm, and that’s properly adjusted. Today, navigation is all about electronics, magical boxes that tell us where we are, where we were and where we’re going. Most of the time they work fine—but if gremlins eat the electrons, where will you be without a compass? A magnetic compass and basic piloting skills will take you almost everywhere—if you can spot a landmark, lighthouse, even a buoy every now and then, you’ll make it safely to harbor. That is, if your compass is giving you accurate directions: too many of them are simply mounted somewhere near the wheel without ensuring that outside influences—primarily magnetic metals nearby, but also electronics and electromagnetic fields generated by the wiring—haven’t introduced serious errors. For that, you need an experienced compass adjuster who will use the sun, some esoteric astronomical tables, and arcane know-how, to sync your compass with Mother Earth, so it will always point you in the right direction—even back to the North Pole, if that’s where you want to go.

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This article originally appeared in the December 2023 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/maintenance/a-boat-nuts-christmas-wish-list