Our Emergency Spares Kit: 50 Items That Saved Our Passage

May 8, 2026

Before we left Florida, I spent three weeks building a spares kit. I read every forum post, every book, every "essentials for offshore cruising" list I could find. I bought impellers, belts, filters, and enough hose clamps to secure a small building. I organized them in plastic bins with labels. I felt prepared.

Then we sailed to the Bahamas. And the thing that broke wasn't on any list. It was a $3 O-ring in the freshwater pump. Without it, we had no water pressure. No showers. No dishwashing. Just a foot pump that gave you a thimbleful of lukewarm water and a cramp in your calf.

Three years later, we've used maybe 60% of the spares I bought. And we've bought another 40% that weren't in the original kit. Here's the real list — not the theoretical one, but the items that actually saved our bacon.

The Engine Room (Items 1–15)

These are the no-brainers. Everyone tells you to carry them. Everyone is right.

1. Raw water impellers (3x). We used five in three years. They degrade in tropical heat even if you don't run the engine. Carry more than you think.
2. Impeller gaskets / cover O-rings (2x). Because the cover always leaks after you change the impeller, and it's never the impeller's fault.
3. Alternator belts (2x). We lost one to a seized water pump pulley. The other went to a misaligned alternator we didn't catch in time.
4. Fuel filters (primary + secondary, 2x each). Diesel bug is real. Water in the tank is real. You'll change these more often than the manual suggests.
5. Oil filters (3x). Standard maintenance. Nothing exotic.
6. Zincs (engine, heat exchanger, prop shaft, 2x each). Tropical water eats zincs. We changed the prop shaft zinc three times in one year.
7. Exhaust elbow gasket. When ours failed, saltwater backed into the cylinders. A $12 gasket would have prevented a $400 rebuild.
8. Lift pump rebuild kit. The diaphragm hardens and cracks. Suddenly you have air in the fuel line and no start.
9. Injector washers (set). We pulled injectors to clean them and found the washers were baked solid. New ones are cheap insurance.
10. Thermostat. Overheating at low RPM. Took us two days to diagnose because we assumed it was the raw water side. It was the thermostat.
11. Coolant hoses (2x each size). They swell, crack, and weep. Especially the ones near the exhaust.
12. Hose clamps (assorted, 20x). Stainless, all sizes. The ones on your boat will corrode. The ones at island chandleries are often low-grade stainless that rusts in six months.
13. JB Weld or similar epoxy putty. We patched a cracked heat exchanger end cap with this and ran it for six months before replacing the part.
14. Teflon tape and thread sealant. You'll use this constantly. Fuel fittings, water fittings, sensor threads.
15. Spare engine oil (2 gallons). Not for changes — for top-ups when you burn oil on long passages. And you will burn oil.

The Electrical Locker (Items 16–30)

1. Assorted fuses (blade, glass, ANL, 2x each rating). We blew a 150A ANL fuse on the inverter. The chandlery in St. Lucia didn't stock that size. We were without AC power for a week.
2. Heat shrink tubing (assorted sizes). The only way to make a marine connection last. Carry more than you think.
3. Butt connectors, ring terminals, spade terminals (assorted). Tinned marine grade. Don't buy automotive stuff — it'll corrode.
4. Electrical tape (3 rolls). Not for permanent fixes. For "get me to the next port" fixes.
5. Spare bilge pump (1x). The primary died at 0300 in a squall. The backup was a $30 Rule pump that ran for six months before we replaced the primary.
6. Bilge pump float switch (1x). They fail silently. When ours died, the bilge filled until the manual pump alarm woke us.
7. Spare VHF antenna. Lightning hit a boat two anchorages away and fried our antenna via induction. We had a handheld, but the fixed VHF was dead until we swapped the antenna.
8. Coax cable and connectors. For the VHF, AIS, and WiFi antenna. Water gets into connections. You'll re-terminate at least once.
9. Spare navigation light bulbs / LED modules. We lost our steaming light 200 miles from land. A $15 LED module saved us from running the tri-color all night.
10. 12V USB chargers (2x). They die constantly. Salt air + electronics = short lifespan.
11. Spare solar panel controller (1x). Our MPPT failed in the Marquesas. No chandlery for 1,000 miles. We wired around it with a PWM backup and limped to Tahiti.
12. Lithium battery BMS reset tool. If you have LiFePO4, the BMS will trip eventually. A $20 Bluetooth dongle resets it without disassembly.
13. Multimeter. You can't diagnose what you can't measure. A cheap one is fine. Waterproof is better.
14. Wire (tinned, 14ga and 12ga, 50ft each). For repairs, extensions, and "what was I thinking" rewiring projects.
15. Spare shore power cord end. The plug corrodes. The pins loosen. Being able to cut off the bad end and install a new one saves a $150 cord.

The Rig & Deck (Items 31–40)

1. Spare halyard (1x, 50ft). We used this when the main halyard started shedding its cover. Made a temporary messenger line and replaced it in port.
2. Sta-Lok or Norseman fittings (2x each size). If you have swageless rigging, these are your "get home" spare. We replaced a cracked toggle at sea with one of these.
3. Turnbuckle toggles and clevis pins (assorted). They corrode. They wear. And the chandlery never has the exact size you need.
4. Sail repair tape (2 rolls). Dacron tape for sails, canvas tape for covers. Not pretty, but it'll hold until you reach a sailmaker.
5. Palm and needle set. For hand-sewing sail repairs when the machine is 500 miles away.
6. Spare reefing lines (2x). They chafe on the clew ring. We lost one in 30 knots because the chafe guard had worn through.
7. Winch service kit (1x per winch type). Pawls and springs corrode. A seized winch in a squall is terrifying.
8. Spare sheave for mainsheet block. We didn't have one. We needed one. The block grooved and started eating the sheet.
9. Spare jib halyard shackle. The snap shackle on our jib halyard corroded shut. We had to cut it off with a hacksaw. A $12 spare would have saved an hour of cursing.
10. Dyneema line (3mm and 5mm, 20ft each). Soft shackles, temporary lashing, emergency halyard. Stronger than steel, lighter than rope.

The Plumbing & Misc (Items 41–50)

1. Head rebuild kit. The joker valve hardens. The seals leak. You'll rebuild the head at least once. It's disgusting but necessary.
2. Head hoses (3ft each size). They permeate. They stink. Replacing them is the only cure.
3. Seacocks (1x each size). We didn't carry these. Then a seacock cracked in the Bahamas and we had to plug the through-hull with a wooden bung for three days.
4. Wooden bungs (assorted, 6x). The classic emergency plug. We've used two. One for the cracked seacock, one for a hose that blew off its barb.
5. Epoxy putty (2 packs). We patched a leaking diesel tank, a cracked water tank, and a weeping through-hull with this stuff.
6. 5200 or Sikaflex sealant. For bedding hardware, sealing leaks, and gluing things that weren't meant to be glued.
7. Spare freshwater pump. The $3 O-ring story. We eventually carried a complete spare pump because the O-ring was proprietary and unavailable in the islands.
8. Propane solenoid. Ours failed in the Dominican Republic. No stove, no oven, no hot water. A $40 solenoid saved us from cold beans for a month.
9. Spare autopilot drive belt. Our wheel pilot's belt snapped 400 miles from Bermuda. Hand-steering for two days in building seas. Never again.
10. Duct tape and self-amalgamating tape. Duct tape for everything. Self-amalgamating for electrical and hose emergencies. We used both more often than we'd admit in polite company.

What We Didn't Need (And Carried Anyway)

We carried a spare starter motor for three years. Never used it. We carried a spare raw water pump. Never used it. We carried three spare alternators. Used none. The lesson: carry the things that wear out or corrode. Don't carry the things that fail catastrophically but rarely — unless you're crossing an ocean with no rescue.

Storage

We keep spares in three places: engine room (engine stuff), aft locker (electrical and rigging), and the bilge (plumbing and emergency). Each bin is labeled with a Sharpie on masking tape. In a panic at 0300, you don't want to be opening six bins to find the impeller.

Update your spares list every six months. Cross off what you used. Add what you wish you'd had. The list evolves. The boat breaks in new and exciting ways every season.