This kind of workmanship drives people away from boating

We just finished installing a new fresh water pump. Why do that at the beginning of winter? Well, when we went to pump potable antifreeze from our on-board water tank through the lines to the galley and head, our five year old ShurFlow Extreme Series pump wouldn't pump. No suction at all although the motor ran fine.

We know what you're thinking: It lasted five years. Sorry, but it didn't. Two years after we installed it, the diaphragm failed and we took it apart and replaced the old diaphragm assembly. That pump cost over $200 new and the rebuild parts were well over $100.

And, we're not running a charter boat here with a bunch of guys flushing their way through 45 gallons of fresh water, five or six days a week. During the summer, we're at a marina, drinking and washing in city water. We only use that pump when we are underway and that's not what we'd call extreme usage at all.

Cold weather is predicted here which means we should pump the pink stuff through our water lines sooner rather than later. We ordered a new pump from Defender Marine and because we don't have time to re-plumb the system to accept a completely different pump, we ordered a ShurFlow Par-Max Plus pump, which is very close in appearance and performance to the extremely failed old pump.

How long will the ShurFlow Par-Max Plus pump last? Judging from the price, probably not as long as good old Extreme. Par Max Plus cost $132 (plus $11.15 shipping and $9.15 tax) and that's a lot less than the old Extreme pump was.

Here's the old pump. Not only doesn't it pump, but it's rusty even after being in an area that is relatively dry. We're not sure that any of the pumps from competing manufacturers are any better, but if you are in the market for a pressure water pump, avoid ShurFlow or look forward to an hour in the engine space to replace it fairly regularly.

What happened to reliable equipment?

Here's another example of poor workmanship that we, unfortunately, own. It's our Standard Horizon Chart plotter.

This picture was taken when it was new, five years ago. Since then, the plastic cover has deformed, yellowed and no longer fits. But better yet, the unit itself is no longer reliable. When we set it to record miles traveled on a cruise, the result shown is roughly double the distance we have actually covered. On a recent cruise, our location was shown to be in the middle of a Connecticut state park when we were actually in the channel on the Connecticut River. Gee, just a mile or two off.

The Standard Horizon Chart plotter also came with an instruction manual that is beyond bad. Whoever wrote it has never been on a boat trying to figure out what button to push to simply display a route. That should be easy. The small computer we use to really navigate does that in a split second and it displays exactly where we are and how much distance we have traveled. It cost lot less than the Standard Horizon unit and it's now four years old.

We won't belabor this but looking at the chart plotter photo reminds us that the people who designed our Icom M-412 VHF marine radio also have never spent any time on a boat. The mic cord for this radio maxes out at maybe 35 inches. That means that we can't stand up while operating the radio. In fact, you have to bend over to use the mic while seated at the helm. Guess we should relocate our helm chair, right?

Sorry to spend your time on this rant. There are many other things we could complain about in the recreational boating world but this is probably enough for now.