An obituary of note, in the poor baby department, and I agree 100% with this poll!
John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot" has, over the years, been one of the most influential books in terms of sailing and cruising on my bookshelf... Which, considering it has bugger all boat content may surprise a few folks.
I mention this because a friend and I have been discussing such things as tools and the sort of repair materials that one should carry aboard at any given time. John Muir in his discussion of needful tools hit the nail on the head when he said something to the effect that he would not even consider a trip to the local liquor store without some serious tool inventory that to most folk would seem excessive.
On Loose Moose 2 we took a certain comfort that pretty much all of the tools used to build her were aboard when we sailed away from France. Truth is, having those tools both saved us a lot of money over the years but also allowed us to make money from time to time as well... No bad thing at all.
We feel the same about having a certain amount of glass fiber supplies onboard because you never know when you might want to build a new dinghy or repair a three foot hole when a frisky power boater has a lapse of common sense/attention while you sit happily at anchor...
,Which is why at any given time aboard "So It Goes" you'll find at least three gallons of epoxy, five yards of 10 oz glass cloth, several full rolls of both Biax and normal woven glass tape (in 3", 6", 12" widths), various fillers (wood fiber, silica, micro spheres, carbon powder), as well as a moderate assortment of carbon tape, cloth, and roving/tow to add some real muscle to what I can build when needful.
The interesting fact is that all of that does not take up very much room, more or less about the same cubic area as a case of Racor filters and as I have electric propulsion, I certainly don't need a case of filters and assorted internal combustion spares so everything works out just fine.
Listening to The Volunteers
So it goes...
