Tools and sanity on a boat...

The fact of the matter is you really can't have too many tools on a boat but even I'll admit there are limits to what you can manage...

On "Loose Moose 2" we had a dedicated tool locker that held all the tools that built the boat and as we had the boat designed for just such storage it was located in such a way where the weight was non-problematic and access was facile! The advantage of being able to do any repair needful to the boat was the best sort of insurance in my way of thinking. Knowing I had a means of fixing nearly any sort of problem myself and the fact that I had a possible revenue stream if needful kept me a happy camper.

"So it Goes" on the other hand is not so tool friendly, and I will admit to an ongoing frustration of trying to make it so. I have tried various types of tool boxes, tool bags and even just let the various tools free range around the boat hoping that they would find some sort of tool nirvana and sort themselves out. Talk about dumb ideas....

But it is frustrating, as finding the various tools in all the various nooks and crannies I am  forced to store them, often takes more time than the job the tools are needed for!


The current "cunning plan", as Baldrick would say, is to cut a new cockpit locker to access the area which used to be the starboard quarter berth but is no longer easily accessible from the interior as the galley is in the way (oh those little impulse changes do wreck havoc) which pretty much solves half the problem as the space is more than adequate. The half that remains unsolved it the fact that tool boxes are still not really a workable solution on a boat and tool bags are just that... Bags where all items tend to migrate via gravity to defy any attempts at meaningful organization. My inclination of the moment is to work up a solution based on tool rolls which just might be a workable solution...