Pelican Parts Forums - Career change... Boat Mechanic?

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Mechanic is such a hard job in a boat. Most boat owners dont have any interest in the engine and only call when its buggered up. Why not get into the buisness as a project manager and build your own client based maintanance service working with the local yards .Thats what I do. I get paid to move boats and the other day got $900 bucks to tke the yard manager out to lunch and tell him one of his customers was pissed because they ran a screw into the wall of the engine room and didnt check and the screw came out into the cabin part and poked thru the wood paneling.
I built this bussiness all by myself www.autosearacing.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cajundaddy (Post 8982178)

Find some old salt that has been wrenching boats forever and ride his shop coat for a while to see what you think. Show up early, leave late, and he might just show you a thing or two about the biz. Schools are great but no substitute for hands-on with a very experienced tech at your side.

This is golden advice to anyone looking into starting their own business.

A close friend (friend A) loves trucks so sold everything and opened a shop to do truck upgrades (he was also in IT).
His biz went under in a few months.
My other friend (friend B) who built a successful business gave the same advice Cajun gave above.. that before he went "all in" find a shop that does that kind of work and see if the fantasy equals the reality.
Friend A is back working for Intel
Friend B was working for Northrup about 30 years ago when he quit and started he own business... if he had stay he would have retired with a pension by now.

My brother had boats... I helped him work on them (gas)... don't remember it being fun (I worked as payback for him talking out on the boat).

If you are coming from a 19 year career I'm guessing you are at least in your 40's?

Diesel mechanic is a pretty dirty physical job... sure you want to start down that road looking at the big five oh?

I have very little boat experience, but a lifetime in the auto biz. I don't know how much wrenching you do currently, but tinkering with your own cars on the weekends, and doing it every day , day in day out, for money is a whole different ball game.
Also, I don't know how old you are, but it can be hard on your body. Wanna do this for the next 15 -20 years? Think about it long and hard before you leap . Just my .02

What Fred said. BTW, wrenching on many boats means crawling down into a hot engine bay with no room to move and contorting oneself, or crawling into a bilge full of god knows what...

While my boats have always been my #1 joy in life, the last thing id ever want to do is work on them for a living as a marine mechanic. Most working conditions on a boat suck.

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