The Tools We Actually Use Onboard (And the Ones We Don't)

April 28, 2026

Before we left, I bought every tool I thought a boat might need. I had a complete socket set, a torque wrench, a multimeter, a soldering station, a Dremel, a heat gun, and something called a "universal puller set" that looked like medieval torture equipment. I organized them in a custom-built tool locker with foam cutouts and labels. It was beautiful. It was heavy. And half of it was dead weight.

Three years later, we've given away the Dremel, the puller set, and the torque wrench (which seized in the tropics and became a very expensive paperweight). Here's what actually lives in the tool bag we grab every time something breaks.

The Essentials (Used Weekly)

1. Adjustable wrench (10-inch). The most used tool on the boat. Seacocks, hose clamps, through-hulls, engine fittings. It's not precise, but it works on everything. We have two — one for clean jobs, one for dirty jobs.
2. Needle-nose pliers (2 pairs). One standard, one with wire cutters. Electrical work, retrieving dropped screws, holding cotter pins while you bend them. We use these almost daily.
3. Wire cutters / strippers. Not the fancy automatic kind. A simple Klein stripper that works on 12-gauge to 18-gauge. Anything bigger, we use a knife.
4. Multimeter. Cheap is fine. Waterproof is better. We test battery voltage, check fuses, trace shorts, and verify shore power polarity. If you can't measure it, you're guessing.
5. Headlamp (2x). The engine room has no windows. The bilge is dark. The anchor locker is a cave. A headlamp leaves both hands free and points where you look. We keep one on the nav station and one in the tool bag.
6. Scraper (flexible putty knife). Bottom cleaning, removing old gasket material, scraping barnacles off the prop. The most versatile blade on the boat.
7. Hacksaw. Stainless bolts that won't budge. Old hose clamps frozen solid. PVC pipe for plumbing repairs. A hacksaw with 5 spare blades has saved us a dozen times.
8. Cordless drill/driver. We resisted this for a year, thinking it was "luxury." Then we had to remove 40 screws to access a leaking tank. The drill turned a 3-hour job into 20 minutes. We charge it with a 12V inverter.
9. Hammer (16oz ball-peen). Not for hitting things hard. For tapping stuck fittings, driving wooden bungs into through-hulls, and persuading recalcitrant mechanical parts. The ball end is perfect for cotter pins.
10. Screwdrivers (flat and Phillips, 3 sizes each). Basic. Boring. Essential. We keep a magnetic one for retrieving screws from the bilge.

The Specialists (Used Monthly)

1. Pipe wrench (14-inch). For seacocks, prop shafts, and anything round that needs serious torque. It's heavy and ugly and we only use it when nothing else works. But when you need it, you need it.
2. Crescent wrench set (3 sizes). For jobs where an adjustable wrench slips. Also useful as spanners when you need two wrenches on a fitting.
3. Soldering iron (30W). For electrical repairs. Not for plumbing — we use crimp connectors for everything. But for circuit board fixes and sensor wires, a small iron is essential.
4. Heat gun. Heat shrink tubing, removing old decals, softening hose for easier fitting. We use it less than we expected, but when we need it, there's no substitute.
5. Digital caliper. For measuring shaft diameters, bolt sizes, and bearing clearances. Essential when you need to order parts from a chandlery and "about an inch" isn't good enough.
6. Feeler gauges. For engine valve adjustments and checking prop shaft alignment. A $10 set that lives in the engine room.
7. Socket set (metric and imperial, 1/4 and 3/8 drive). We use this less than expected — most boat fittings are accessible with wrenches. But for engine work and tight spaces, sockets are essential.
8. Allen key set (metric and imperial). Modern boats are full of socket-head cap screws. Windlasses, winches, autopilot rams, deck hardware. A good set with a T-handle driver is worth the space.
9. Wire brush. For cleaning corrosion off terminals, battery posts, and engine parts. Also good for roughing gelcoat before epoxy repairs.
10. Level (9-inch torpedo). For installing shelves, aligning the fridge compressor, and checking if the boat is sitting straight on the hardstand. Surprisingly useful.

The Rarely Used (But Saved Our Bacon)

1. Tap and die set. Used twice in three years. Once to clean threads on a stripped engine mount bolt. Once to make a custom stainless bracket. Both times, having it meant the difference between a 1-hour fix and a 2-week parts order.
2. Bolt extractor set. For when a bolt snaps off flush with the surface. We've used it once. It worked. That's enough to justify the space.
3. Inspection camera (cheap USB). For looking inside tanks, behind panels, and into spaces where human eyes don't fit. We bought it for $40 and use it more than we expected.

The Dead Weight (What We Gave Away)

• Dremel tool: Too delicate, too many bits, too hard to keep dry. A file and sandpaper do the same jobs.
• Torque wrench: Seized in the humidity. We torque by feel now, which is accurate enough for most boat work.
• Universal puller set: Never used. Not once. If we need to pull something, we take it to a machine shop.
• Pipe cutter: We thought we'd do plumbing. We do hose, not pipe. A hacksaw handles the rare copper pipe job.
• Impact driver: Overkill for a sailboat. The cordless drill has enough torque for everything we encounter.
• Complete wrench set (open/box end, every size): The adjustable and crescent wrenches handle 90% of jobs. We kept 4 specific sizes and gave away the rest.
• Jigsaw: We used it once to cut a locker shelf. A hacksaw and file would have worked.
• Bench grinder: Way too big, way too heavy. We sharpen chisels with a file now.

Storage

We keep tools in three places: a soft bag for daily grab-and-go, a plastic bin for electrical stuff, and a toolbox in the engine room for the heavy stuff. Everything is labeled. Everything has a home. In a seaway, loose tools become missiles. We learned that the hard way when a pipe wrench put a dent in the fridge.

The best tool on our boat isn't in the bag. It's the cruiser network — the guy in the next slip who has the one thing you don't. We've borrowed a bearing puller, a crimping tool, and a left-handed drill bit from neighbors. And we've lent our tools out just as often. The tool you need is usually on the boat three docks down.