Sailboats and Travel Trailers-a lot in common

4X4Dodger wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Some marine parts are better (not all) but to buy them take the inflated RV prices and double them for "marine grade".

If you are bored, stripping out the RV electical system may be fun but an RV isn't nearly as rough on systems as a boat. Plus a $20k RV corresponds to a $150k boat. It may make sense to dump $20k into retrofitting a $150k boat's systems...not so much a $20k RV.

I agree with you that RV's in general are nearly not as rough on systems as a boat. The important point is that on the ocean you cannot call the Good Sam Tow Truck to pull you out of a problem. So systems must be reliable and hardy. I also agree that the outlay must make economic sense.

I do disagree however that prices "double" for marine Equipment. Marine grade Equipment is often made to strict Coast Guard or international standards that do cost more to meet in many cases and thus the higher prices. But I have found the prices to be about the same or even less in some cases for many items that are compatible with RV's.

And just for the record I didnt spend anywhere near $20k rewiring my boat....(this does not include the Radar, Radios, Weather Fax etc etc.)

My point was do it yourself with high quality stuff and you will avoid a lot of small costly repairs because you will be able to fix it. And Calders book is good enough to walk even a novice through complicated repairs and installations....

My main objective was to offer good alternative sources that not everyone may have known or thought about.

Of course you don't call Good Sam, you call Tow Boat US. It's really very similar. (if you claim offshore ocean crossings, you have to compare to something equivalent like driving the Pan-America Highway and tell us how well Good Sam works in the Bolivian highlands)

Sure if you retrofit either yourself, you aren't spending $20k to rewire the boat but if you paid yourself a fair wage along with overhead, I would be surprised, if you didn't spend more than $20k if you do the job right.

A $20k retrofit on a boat is a light duty refresh not a total overhaul. It just doesn't make sense to retrofit RV's unless you are doing it as a for fun project.

I do agree with the calder book, I have that in with my electrical kit and for the most part it is applicable to either boat or RV.

As far as marine grade items, they fall into a few categories:
- Same quality same price.
- Better quality but much higher price. Typically stainless steel stuff that is rather pointless on RV's.
- Same quality higher price and this is probably biggest category.


I can't think of anything that is the same or lower cost and better quality. We've been splitting time between our boat and the RV since '07 and it's far more common for us to use RV stuff on the boat than the other way around. The rare times, we have used a marine item on the RV it was because we already had it in the spare parts bin.