I think a lot of professional fishermen would be insulted and annoyed at your ill-informed statements Danny. Glenn.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dragon" <daniel.meyer1@comcast.net> > > Forgive me this . . . no insult intended, but I think that view is > hopelessly optimistic. Dan, I've reread your post several times, and I keep arriving at the conclusion that you make my point for me. Based on long exposure and experience, the fishing fleet knows what bracket the risk of failure lies in. They maintain what needs to be, and defer the rest. The boats are for the most part not pretty, but they do work -- 24/7, on and on and on. Start the engine on May 3, and don't shut it down until June 21. Over and over. I'm sure fishing boats suffer failure from time to time, but on a fleetwide failure per hours-run basis I suspect the incidence is rather low. I have no data to support this suspicion. These folk, I think, apply a reasonableness test and take a calculated risk, because they know their equipment far more intimately, and this is their life. If the standard aboard a recreational passagemaker needs to be 100% probability of zero failure, then triple redundancy is the order of the day. Trying to eliminate that last 2% risk might cost 30% of the value of the boat. That's a choice the owner can make. Fishing is a business, and a strapped, tight margin > one. There are exceptions of course, but generally in tight margin industry, > corners are caught to the very limit. If it works, it goes. If it runs, > another season is risked. > > They gamble, and not always willingly. Engine needs rebuilt? Maybe, but that > $20,000 may be all that is left for fuel for the next run. Maybe if we make > it big on that run.....whoops, price was down and permit fees (Taxes) were > up . . . maybe we can rebuild her next year. > > I've seen fishing boats go out with equipment I wouldn't have bothered to > scrap. (this coming from a guy whose boat resembles a colander at the > moment) > > (of course there are fishing boats with equipment I could never hope to > afford to balance that out) > > I work in industry (not fishing). Have all my life. From farming to heavy > equipment to electrical work to computers. > > Safety and redundancy are never at the top of the list. Really. It takes an > incident, or a regulation (and those are always short-sighted and > reactionary) to even get marginal attention focused there . . . particularly > in redundancy. It is horrendously expensive. > > Industry = Money. Always. > > Maintenance is seldom on the top of the list either . . . if it runs, it is > run. It costs money to shut it down . . . to maintain it. It costs capacity > to have a preventative maintenance schedule AND there is no calculatable > benefit to the accountant types . . . it is only an expense and not easy to > justify until something breaks itself. Even to protect multimillion dollar > installations . . . they are run to capacity, then fixed when they break . . > . or replaced...or sold. Or run some more. > > To the worker-bee, "make it happen or you will be replaced" ...the ingenuity > displayed is amazing sometimes. > > To the independent, it can be their next meal. They will make it work, till > it absolutely cannot. (seen the same thing in farming, I have). > > As I said, there are exceptions, but do not look to the fishing fleets for > how to run or setup your boat. Their priorities do not resemble yours. Their > assumptions are different from yours. Their pressures are different than > yours. > > CUAgain, > Daniel Meyer > http://cuagain.manilasites.com > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/trawler-world-list > > To Unsubscribe send email to trawler-world-list-request@lists.samurai.com > Include the word "Unsubscribe" (and nothing else) in the subject or body of the message. > >

(snip) Dan, I've reread your post several times, and I keep arriving at the conclusion that you make my point for me. (endsnip) Fair enough . . . maybe my point would be better stated with a simple, "they have vastly different priorities than we do". Take bottom paint for example . . . many of them haul every season. You think the "Great bottom paint the whole fishing fleet uses" is good stuff? Maybe . . . but in my area anyway . . . it was the cheapest available. They were hauling in 5 months anyway, and were underway most of that time. They didn't need long and effective bottom paint. Same went for topsides paint. It was going to get chipped, dinged, dirty, and messed up anyway. Very little prep, cheap paint. Going to get painted every few months anyway. $100 a gallon? Heh, right . . . $20 was pushing it. Ever seen anybody cover epoxy with latex house paint? Boat looked great . . . How about a operator that runs Cooks oil? (recycled engine oil, about 60 cents a quart). I would not put it in anything (that I wanted to keep anyway...) Best stuff made for him, see, he blew so much diesel by the rings that his oil diluted very rapidly. $24,000 rebuild? Nope. Crank up the rate on the oil changer (burns some of the engine oil underway, fresh oil is added, thus the oil is always supposedly fresh). Crank it WAY up. Burn gallons of oil per run. Gallons and gallons. Got another 13000 hours out of the engine that way. 13000 is not a typo . . . Then he still couldn't afford a rebuild so he installed a beater that had been pulled from another boat and started the same thing all over again. I've seen debates on this list about diesel engines and when to rebuild . . . 5000 hours? 8000 hours? I've been in boats that had engines with 25000+ hours. A rebuild still was not in the budget. Maybe next season . . . Like farmers, they know what works. No question. But their goals are not the same as a recreational boater or cruiser....otherwise we'd all be running 50-150 foot steel draggers . . . CUAgain, Daniel Meyer http://cuagain.manilasites.com