Entry & progression
Entry: L2.2. Progression: a spares list is a risk assessment written in part numbers. The failure that ends a charter is almost never exotic. It is a part you could have had in a drawer.
Start from the single points of failure
Walk the boat and ask one question at every machine: if this stops right now, what stops with it? Most items have a redundancy — two mains, two gensets, two bilge pumps. Some do not. The single-point items are usually unglamorous: one steering pump, one seawater pump on the only genset, one raw-water strainer body, one fuel transfer pump, one shore-power breaker, one control head.
Those get spares aboard. Everything else gets a decision based on lead time, cost and how badly it hurts.
The four questions for every part
- How likely is it to fail, on this boat, in this season? Not in general — on this boat, with this operating profile.
- What happens if it does? Slower, uncomfortable, stopped, or dangerous.
- How long to get one where we are going? A part that arrives overnight in Fort Lauderdale is three weeks in the Windwards.
- Can I actually fit it? A spare you cannot install with the tools and hands aboard is ballast.
The consumables that always run out
- Fuel filters and pre-filter elements — carry far more than you think, because the day you need them is the day you need six.
- Oil filters, air filters, lube oil and coolant in the boat's actual grades.
- Impellers, belts, gaskets, O-rings, hose clamps in stainless and in the right sizes.
- Fuses, breakers, bulbs, contactors, relays, terminals, cable ties, self-amalgamating tape, gasket material.
- Sealants, thread lock, penetrating oil, emery, rags — the things that quietly disappear.
Part numbers are the discipline
The single most useful habit in an engine room: every time you touch a component, record its number. Not the description. The number, off the plate, photographed. Descriptions get you a part that nearly fits, three thousand miles away, on a Friday. Build the list while the boat is working, one component at a time, and inside a season you will have something no supplier can sell you.
Tools
You need the tools to do the jobs you have decided you will do yourself, and no others. Buy the specialist tools your machinery actually demands — the injector puller, the correct torque wrench and its range, the bearing puller, the megger, a decent multimeter, a clamp meter, an infrared thermometer. Then buy the boring things that make a bad day survivable: good light, kneeling pads, a magnetic tray, drip trays, absorbent, and a way to lift something heavy in a space with no headroom.
The part you did not carry
It happens to everyone. When it does, the professional response is not heroics — it is a fast, honest call. Tell the captain what has failed, what it means for the programme, what you need, how long it will take and what you can do in the meantime. Then start sourcing before you start improvising. A bodge that gets you through the day is sometimes right, but it must be a decision, recorded, with a plan to make it good — not a secret.
TIP — Rehearse the supply chain before you need it Before a remote leg, know who your agent is, what customs will do to a marine part, whether the boat can import duty-free under her registration, and which supplier will actually answer the phone at the weekend. Getting a part to a boat is a logistics problem, not an engineering one, and it is solved in advance or not at all.