Over the years we’ve accumulated an assortment of specialty tools. Most of these are rarely used, but when required, they have been essential for getting maintenance projects completed expeditiously. Whether you carry these or not depends on your fetish for tools, how much space you have for storage of rarely used gear, and where you’ll be cruising.

We’ll start with “custom made” tools for special jobs. Every boat has one or two of these. In our case, the wrench above is used for tightening Dorade closure handles. The wrench below is needed on one of the high-pressure fuel lines from the fuel injection pumps on our John Deere diesels.

Strap wrenches are used for changing filters, and occasionally for turning balky fittings that are hard to get a hold of (or that you don’t want to mark with a metal wrench).

This is an open end/box wrench combo with a ratchet on the box end. When we first saw these we thought they were very cool. And when we’ve used them – twice in the past year and a half – they’ve been helpful. However, we’re not sure we’d buy these again as their function can be duplicated, without the ratchet, by a normal wrench, or by a socket.

This is a specialized wrench used for high pressure pipe fittings – typically on a boat for hydraulic steering or rig hydraulics, or the fuel injection pump. In our case we need this for the fuel injection pumps, so we carry just the one size required.

“Crow foot” sockets are useful in especially tight places. This is another tool aboard for the fuel injection pump. And while we only need one size, they are small enough that we carry sets of metric and SAE just in case.

We have SAE and metric sets of “nut drivers.” However, it is the sizes which fit our hose clamps which see 99% of the use.

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This “trouble light” gets used about once every couple of months. It is a 115VAC fluorescent and also has a plug for one power tool at the base.

Here’s one of our favorite tools – a set of “transfer punches.” These are used to precisely transfer holes from one piece of hardware to another, and establish a center punch for starting a drill bit. A set like this costs about $12 from Harbor Freight and Salvage.

Rarely used, but extremely helpful on occasion – the BFH (Big *!@#ing Hammer). The rubberized head is filled with lead shot. Good for coaxing recalcitrant (stuck) hardware without damaging surface finish (or at least with minimal damage to surface finish).

We’ve used a digital level for years to help with setting up our rig. These are also useful in determining fore-and-aft trim and to measure heel. This one dates to the launching of Beowulf in 1995 and is still working.

This is digital caliper, which switches between English and Metric measurements. It gets used maybe four or five times a year.

We carry several types of mirrors. Rectangular (shown above) and round, on telescoping, articulating handles, and a small piece without the handle.

A set of jewelers screwdrivers can be had for less than $3 and are used mostly for eye glass repairs and working on electronics.

Speaking of screwdrivers, this is a set of screwdriver bits including Phillips, flat, square drive, and torque style heads. These can be used with ratcheting handles or electric screwdrivers. There are usually just a couple that are used most of the time, but you need to buy the set to get those.

We like to have a couple of spring clamps and at least one C clamp aboard (we also have a small vice in the engine room).

You will want a set of taps and dies aboard. We also like these ratcheting tap handles. They are very useful in tight locations where you cannot turn the tap handle a full 360 degrees.

“Easy Outs” are used to extract broken bolts. You first drill a hole in the bolt, and then insert the Easy Out, using a tap handle. Be sure to carry the correct drill bits for each Easy Out (you can buy sets with drill bits and Easy Outs for about $15). We’ve used these four or five times in the past 30 years – and would not be without them.

We’ve only used our snap ring pliers three times in the last 250,000 miles – but each time they got us out of a jam. Ideally you would know what style is required for the boat’s snap rings. However, it is usually safer to buy both inside and outside pliers, and a set of different sized points just in case there is a special snap ring about which you are not aware.

Of course you will have several vice grips aboard. One of the styles we like has a needle nose (in addition to the traditional style).

Other items we carry in the specialty category include:

• Cheater pipes – several lengths of pipe which fit over our socket wrench and breaker bar handles to add leverage.
• Feeler gauges – for checking spark plug adjustment and checking tolerances on couplings.
• Infrared remote temperature sensing gun
• Torque wrench – essential for diesel (and other) assembly operations.One of the questions you’ll be faced with is tool quality and cost. For precision tools like a torque wrench, we prefer to buy name brands. But for most other tools we’ve found that discount varieties seem to work fine.