Recently, I helped one of our vintage gals shove off the center dock and get underway. The captain and I exchanged a hand wave as she headed toward the PGA bridge, while I turned and resumed my yard routine. Walking back to the machine shop, I felt an uncommon lightness in my step and an unfamiliar assurance that all was well. I had to wonder why I felt so at ease, and then it hit me: The boat that just set sail for Chub Key was still all mechanical. Chain and cable to quadrant steering, chain and cable to mechanical throttle and clutch controls, push-pull cable to trolling valves, A/P motor chain drive to helm shaft sprocket, tach drive off the camshaft, manifold pressure pulled off the intake manifold instead of scrolling to a screen with bouncing, conflicting digital load percentages. Subconsciously, I knew we wouldn’t soon get a call about a bad hydraulic seal, erroneous low coolant alarm, air temperature sensor calibration fault, or a miscommunication code between the steering processor and the autopilot. The boat had none of that extraneous rubbish. She was all mechanical and it always worked. No cycling the ignitions to reboot, no referring to a manual full of error code translations, no unacknowledged (ignored) calls to the manufacturer, no replacement of entire components because no one can fix this stuff, no tech trauma. Imagine that. What if the entire world was like that? Wait a minute, that’s right, it used to be. We once ruled the seas and skies in simple machines.

There is just too much information at our fingertips today. Most of us, as humans, do not have the capacity to understand, let alone trouble-shoot, modern technology. I am as guilty as the next guy in embracing, then becoming befuddled, with digital magic. In the interest of building better boats, I am quick to try new things and, in the process, end up getting burned and forced to return to the loving arms of simple mechanics. Like my phone and my truck, the new marine applicable technology is full of bugs and requires constant “updates, “fixes,” and new software to properly perform. This gets expensive and consumes massive amounts of time. The peace of mind element within this technology is a very real concern. Will we get that unpredictable alarm today? Will we be rev-limited when we need throttle? Will I remember the touch pad sequence to silence and clear the unnerving siren? Will the controls malfunction while maneuvering in and out of the slip? And, most concerning, will we make it home? I know when I move the throttle lever connected to a chain and cable, it will work. I understand what’s happening. I also know that if there is a problem, it’s a simple fix, whether the boat is local or in a galaxy far, far away. Electronic gremlins are invisible.

The companies that produce and sell the new technology are staffed with pampered, air-conditioned clowns, flush with stock options, flexible benefits cards, and complimentary gym privileges. Why should they care if their product actually works? They can’t provide you with the right components to make a system function. They can’t provide you with the correct schematic. They can’t provide you with the correct harness. Above all, they won’t return phone calls or emails because they don’t understand their product and don’t want to confess their ignorance. Folks, I’m going to let you in on something that I’m not proud of and is potentially bad PR. Since the beginning of this electronic age in boat systems, we have never, ever launched a new boat without some digital glitch that took more head-scratching than a drum of Ivermectin could overcome before delivery. Whether it took a minute, an hour, a day, a week, or a month, there has always been a glitch. We eventually solve the problem and off she goes. If my boat building brothers and sisters are honest, they will have to admit the same. At our yard, Dusty’s time, pre-delivery, is spent troubleshooting and solving a whirlwind of technical problems created by abstract wizardry and technophiles who are oblivious to real world applications. My time is spent swearing and plotting villainous revenge.

What is it about this age that makes the people who pimp this annoyance so incompetent? At home, our monthly wifi, internet, and television subscription service can fault out at any given moment, confounding the provider as well as my wife, who is our “tech savvy” engineer at home. When Julia can’t get the stuff to work, she makes the call, holds for an hour while listening to an insulting, copyright-free, synthesized music loop, until eventually an operator in Punjab picks up in broken English: “Did you try this? Did you try that? Did you shut down and reboot? OK, we will have to send someone out. Dante should be there next Wednesday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Don’t let his facial tattoos and skull piercings scare you. He’s been out of prison for a year.” Same process with boat stuff. Generally speaking, the boating industry is full of simple machines, with digital processors bolted on for no good reason, built and sold by people without a clue. Boat builders just can’t get away from this universal incompetence.

What is it about this age that makes us want to apply unproven, advanced technology to the simple pleasures of this world like spending time on the water? When Alex needs a breath of clean salt air after a tough day at the yard, he grabs his surfboard and heads to the beach. Sooner or later, one of those pampered clowns will market a board with an electronic GPS based, processor controlled smart skeg, compensating for variable fluid dynamics and wave geometry, thermostatically controlled internal heaters for comfort in the winter swell and wax removal in the summer, night vision, gyro stabilization, a built-in visual inertial odometry drone and launcher with GoPro, Chondrichthyes proximity alarm, and optional auto de-sal rinse. All of that will complicate a beautiful sport, breed aggravation, and the joy of surfing will cease to exist. The board will be overweight, constantly break down, and Alex will have to manually paddle in to grab his solar charged e-towel, which senses his mood and emits an appropriate, soothing scent when drying off. In case of low battery, the scent defaults to Summer Sargassum.

Curt Wills, our mechanical and electrical foreman at the old yard, once said to me: “Good economy is expensive.” In the same paradoxical vein, simplicity is complicated. People will tell you: “I just want to simply swipe my smart phone, and the TV comes down from the ceiling.” Or “It’s simple. When we lose shore power, I want the generator to auto-start and transfer.” Or “I want the engines, gears, generators, A/C, and water maker to alert my phone and inform me of variations in temperature and pressure. It will simplify my job.” I’ll bet that right now, someone is trying to “simplify” a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a digital processor. Simple has become complex. Leonardo da Vinci said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Bob Gibson, Cardinal great and at the top of my list of baseball heroes, said: “My pitching philosophy is simple. I believe in getting the ball over the plate and not walking a lot of men.” Amen, boys. You understood. I’d listen to a year of bad music on hold if we could just forgo this impractical intricacy and get back to simply dancing across the sea in a handmade boat. Yeah, that’s it. It’s that simple.

This article originally appeared in the February 2026 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.