The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Perfect or Good Enough?

JHHOMD1-9270975

The inspiration for this post came from the several comments about the above photograph of a manifold I built on Morgan’s Cloud pointing out that:

  • The hose clamps holding the large cockpit drain hoses are too long.
  • The curve in the hose feeding the manifold is kind of tight and that, together with several 90 degree fittings, will have at least some effect on flow rate.
  • The hose at the bottom would be better routed behind the seacock, although actually it does not interfere with the handle.
  • It would be better and more elegant if the whole manifold were built from bronze fittings (or maybe Marelon), rather than a mix of CPVC schedule 80, bronze, and Marelon.

And you know what? The commenters are absolutely dead right on every single point.

But…you knew there was going to be a but, didn’t you?


Login to continue reading (scroll down)

27 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Dick Stevenson

John, Another thing you did correctly is flipped each hose clamp so they threaded in opposite directions on each hose. Now, please someone, make the argument for why that is another “rule” to follow? It has great face validity, but I do not know the reasoning.
Thanks, Dick Stevenson, s/ v Alchemy

Dick Stevenson

Oh John also. Please secure the hose to the sea cock with a wire tie. It will make me happy. Any time on Alchemy I find one item being lead past another,I seem to pull out a wire tie. Dick

ChrisW

There is nothing unsafe here.
There is nothing non-functional.
I’d wrap the blue stripped hose with chafing gear where it impinges on handle — and even that is just protection from vibration which likely doesn’t occur in this location.
“Better is the enemy of good enough.” Sergey Gorshkov

Ken Page

No John, I won’t give any nit-picking advice to make that part of your boat perfect because … as long as we can all “see” perfect in our minds, we should naturally be able to do good enough as we see fit. That ability to “see” or “know” the perfect manifold gives us plenty of leeway to build a reasonable fact simile and be comfortable with it.

Scott Flanders

Yea, mouse job for sure. However, they usually work, particularly with the mix of quality parts. The clamps are the best even if the tag ends will cause a bit of blood letting. Ty wraps to tighten them up would be a good thing. Sweep elbows are a better thing. (Groco among others). We have over 13k hours on one particular application with 90 sweeps with zero salt buildup.

All friendly trashing aside, today’s forecast for the St Pierre – SE Newfoundland crowd doesn’t look good. Let’s hope for the best.

S.

Marc Dacey

I hope it went well for you. I just returned to Toronto from a RYA course in Antigua and this “went hurricane” on Monday morning with 15 boats sunk or damaged beyond repair in Jolly Harbour alone. No amount of springs or proper maintenance can save the boat when the actual dock comes apart, which I got to see as it happened. Very educational, indeed!

As for the “perfect maintenance”, I simply aim for 90% in the sense that John describes in that I try to reduce the obvious issues (sub-par clamps, wrong hose type, too many sharp corners, and, in my case, dissimilar metal contacting) to a minimum, while leaving the “showroom quality” aspect to one side. Something I have yet seen discussed (haven’t gotten to the end of the comments) is the element of ease of access in the quest to do a high standard of maintenance and service. If you had the showroom example done in a part of a boat that involves removing a load of gear, two screwed down lids and requiring a midget with infrared eyeballs to reach, you’ve actually done nothing, in my view to accomplish meaningful maintenace. If you, on the other hand, can regularly even glance at your “90% job”, you will spot issues, like rust or drips, much sooner if you can get a wrench on it in 30 seconds. The short form: in my view, ease of access and “visibility” are key parts of successful maintenance and service. Too many production boats bury skin fittings and seacocks where access is difficult.