u/MaybeFiction

I'm scrambling on last minute details to get my boat ready for launch and I need to replace some wiring leading to the stern navigation light. It is mounted at the junction of the split backstay and the wire running to it appears to have been pretty embrittled by years of weather, and replacing the bulb didn't bring the light back to light. I'm going to just go ahead and replace the whole outside portion of the wire which is about seven feet long.

I'm just not sure what kind of wire I should use. I have lots of spare wire here left by the prior owner including more than enough of the marine wire that looks like household Romex. Is that what I should use? The wire I am replacing was only one layer of insulation and I'm thinking maybe that kind is better as less likely to trap moisture, or maybe the romex-style stuff is better because it's got more layers of protection. But I'm imagining water getting in at the top from rain or just condensation and seeping down by capillary action as a possible failure mode.

All of the other outside wires that I see are specific things like the GPS antenna, which is a thin stranded wire fully sealed for the entire length that is outside. The other navigation light, at the front, has the wire routed inside the bow pulpit ... I think a term is escaping me but it's inside the metal tubing that the lifelines connect to.

I'd also kind of like to just replace the whole fixture but access sucks. It's right above my steering console and access if limited by the Bimini. Nowhere to put a ladder so I'm precariously balanced to reach it... so, removing the bulb part is doable but I'm not sure that taking the whole thing off to redo would be convenient. Just that it's almost the same price for an LED bulb alone versus a whole new sealed fixture.

But either way I need to use the correct kind of wire. There is an above waterline fitting through the deck and I'll put the crimp inside of there and run it to the bulb holder that screws into the bottom of the fixture. I just want to use the right wire so I don't have to redo it in a state of shame.

I've got this machine that keeps breaking and I've got to go and fix it again. The repair is straightforward but tedious and a little painful. Actually it's extremely frustrating. It's manual labor in a tight dirty space and every mistake takes minutes to correct, and I make the same mistake a lot because it requires more precision than my vision allows me. I'm too fat and old for the job but there is no one else to do it.

I am now staring at the machine with a sense of dread. The task should take about an hour. It really should take about 15 minutes, but I expect to mess it up at least three times. Once I start the task I can't use the machine, but if I try using the machine now I may break it worse.

Lots of other work will be some combination of possible versus not, easier, or safer after the machine is fixed. There are tasks involving the machine that could delay significant travel plans, and this repair is early on a long "but first I have to" chain. Funny, the repair is literally shortening a chain as well. Removing a link and reconnecting it, literally and symbolically I guess.

Every single step of the task is relatively straightforward. Unbolt cover, drain fluid, locate link... okay that one will actually be a real puzzle. But straightforward enough. At worst, it's more tedium because I have to open and close the machine multiple times or find an innovative way to jack it up. Not really, two simple jack stands will do the trick.

Anyway the last time I needed to do this same repair - which I now need to revise because I skipped a step last time - I put it off a whole season along with all the tasks that depended on it. It was a profound failure of discipline.

What if any tips do you have for getting past the "starting block" of such a dreaded task?

I haven't driven in a few years but I'd done about $40k worth of uber driving by the time I stopped. My breaking point was seatbelts, I could not handle the arguments that would often start by asking the passenger to respect our mutual safety relative to other drivers I can't control.

Anyway, I have a weird situation right now where I need to move a vehicle and then get a ride back to my starting point, two hours away. I've been trying everything to find a private solution but coming up dry. The basic problem is that while I have at least one friend who could do it, their schedule is very restricted.

The drive will be from an inner ring suburb of a major city, to a rural town on the other side of a water body. It's all the same state/market, so the driver won't be technically unable to catch a return fare, but the odds are very low of anything but a 60+ minute deadhead after the ride.

I also can't get the Uber app to quote me a fare accurately. The drive is 102 miles in real life, and the app says the fare will be $35. It appears that it's calculating the fare based on the straight line distance but unless Uber has boats now, that calculation is grossly wrong. That calculated route clearly takes an "as the crow flies" calculation with no regard to the existence of roads. So I don't actually know the fare, and there's a reasonable chance the driver will also be presented an inaccurate fare. If their actual pay is based on that quoted fair, nobody on their right mind would complete the trip.

My fear is that I'll request the ride and a parade of drivers will show up and immediately cancel, particularly when they see that the Uber app told them it was a 12 mile drive before their GPS confirmed its 100 miles driving away from the dense market.

I don't mind tipping extra. I recognize it's a $200+ situation. But is there any way for me to communicate my request in such a way that I won't get canceled when a driver is assigned?

The old boat that I bought has a car-audio style CD stereo receiver. It's on the main electrical panel. It doesn't have Bluetooth or an auxiliary input, so I bought a basic Pioneer receiver to replace it. I just started working on the installation and the tiny speaker wires on the stereo's wiring harness are not working well with marine crimp connectors at all. I had hoped that a better crimper would do the trick, but the wires are still too small.

I have these little heat shrink solder connectors that I used the last time I did a job like this on a car, and they worked very well in that context. The connector consists of a ring of solder and two rings of colored wax, embedded in a piece of thick small diameter heat shrink tubing. You can twist the wires together inside of the connector if you're delicate about it, and when you do that, the connection is mechanically strong as well as low resistance.

I've been told that these connectors are categorically unacceptable for marine use, with the reasoning being that if they are used improperly they can create a fire hazard. In this specific instance, though, they would only be on the speaker wires, which I guess would peak at about 12 watts of power. It would be pretty hard to imagine them failing catastrophically. But I'm not really sure what else to do for such small wires.

Am I gonna burn my boat down or be unable to get insurance if I use shrink-solder connectors on the speaker wire harness of my stereo?

I have a cabin in my back yard that until recently was rented by a full-time occupant. Over the winter, he applied profound quantities of ice melt salt to the snow on the walkway between the cabin and the house, and completely killed it. I applied a layer of seed a few weeks ago and none has taken except some of what looks like wild clover toward the bottom. Unfortunately, at this point the spot has become a dangerous mud patch that cannot be safely walked on, but it's a choke point, there is no other way up and down the hill on this side of the property.

Apparently "sod" is not a concept here and I would need to drive over 100 miles to find a location that sells the stuff at retail. I looked into this right away because when I lived in a rust belt city, I could just buy sod at a garden shop to jump start a damaged piece of yard.

I could just dump some gravel onto the path and that is probably what I'll have to do, but then it will be even hard to ever get grass back in the spot. I could also do a more radical landscape project and build stairs there but I don't have the bandwidth for that this year. I need to somehow make the path safe to walk, quickly.

Maybe I should just go to Lowe's and buy some actual astroturf? Again that creates the problem that while it gets me through the day, it makes matters worse long term.

What I'm kind of wondering why sod doesn't exist. Do the locals know of an alternative I don't know about?