Let's talk about things that suck

Last weekend, all of the Kemah/Clear Lake area was in a tizzy. Boats lined up and down the channel and major traffic routes were shut down to await the barge carrying the space shuttle to make its way to Space Center Houston at Nasa. In reality, it wasn't a space shuttle, but a life size replica. Houston, who has definitely played a major role in the US space program was deemed to not be a 'tourist destination' and therefore undeserving of a real shuttle. So there was a whole bunch of hullabaloo to welcome what appeared at close examination to be a 7th grade science fair project made of paper mache with a limp and falling off tail section. The fact that we don't get a real shuttle, that we were given a sad likeness and all of the traffic snarls sucks.

While we are on the subject of things that suck, lets talk boat equipment. Our Rule bilge pump float switch also sucks. Actually, Mark referred to said switch as a "poorly engineered and constructed piece of s#*t" but since this is a family friendly blog, we'll just say it sucks.

When we first installed it, 6 months ago we had a bit of foreshadowing as Mark commented on how flimsy the construction of this small $50 part seemed to be, along with the other Rule pumps we had purchased. Upon close inspection, I too thought they seemed to be on the cheap side but what do I know? Due to the fact that Rule products dominate the market, we pushed our thoughts of inadequate construction aside and hoped that we were just being overly critical.

The folly of our ways was made clear to us yesterday morning. We were not hooked up to shore power over night and as Mark went aboard to install yet more fans and lights, he was greeted with the sound of the bilge pump running. We had a thunder storm in the early hours and our mast still lets in some water in a deluge(we are working on that) and we still get a bit of water from the air conditioner (working on that one as well). The bilge was dry, but was still running as the Rule float switch had stuck in the up position. Great.

Rule switch removed and still stuck in the up position

The Rule switch that had been in use MAYBE 4 minutes total in the past 6 months had failed to switch off as it was designed to do. When you think about the cost per minute of operation, this becomes a very expensive part indeed. This meant that the bilge pump was sucking air, which is not a good thing for the pump and also it put our new $2000 battery it was running off of in danger of failure. The hour indicator stated that the pump had been running for 3 hours. Had we been gone from the boat for a few days the bilge pump would have continued to run until the battery was totally drained at which point it would have been rendered useless. A crappy $50 part could have cost us $2000 to replace the battery we had JUST replaced.

Yup, 3 hours

The switch comes with a 2 year warranty, so conceivably we could trade in the crappy Rule float switch for another crappy Rule float switch with the same design flaws for free. Umm, thanks but no. I think we will be looking for another option and just chalk this up to some valuable lessons learned. 1. We need to trust our instincts. Mark is at times maddeningly meticulous but 9 times out of 10, his initial opinion is proven to be correct. 2. Just because a company dominates the market doesn't mean their product is any good, just that they have a great PR and distribution team.