Untidevideo
The BRUTAL Reality of Boat Life!
August 22, 2025 · 20 min · 32K views
What this video covers
The 55-year-old sailboat Elixir undergoes an extensive refit in a New Zealand boatyard, facing significant delays, budget overruns, and mechanical setbacks.▶ 0:43 The project includes installing a new watermaker intake seacock, which requires fabricating a New Zealand hardwood backing pad and countersinking the hull.▶ 2:42 The crew also replaces the boat's obsolete ZF gearbox with a new unit sourced from Sal Marine in the UK, after failing to find compatible parts locally.▶ 18:15 Additional maintenance tasks involve stripping and re-bedding chain plates, tiling the galley, and sanding the hull to remove old antifouling paint.▶ 14:47 The refit process is complicated by customs issues with imported Battle Born batteries and the physical and emotional exhaustion of working 12-hour days to meet a looming departure window for Fiji.▶ 6:22 Despite the challenges, the crew successfully reassembles the engine and prepares the vessel for relaunch.▶ 19:18 The experience highlights the difficulty of managing complex, long-term boat repairs under strict visa and weather-related time constraints.
Boats in this video
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