The first rule of a spares kit is that the part you do not carry is the part that breaks. I learnt it the slow way, becalmed off the Glenan with a seized fuel filter and no spare, drifting onto a falling tide while I improvised with a coffee filter and bad language. A proper spares and tools kit is not about preparing for everything; it is about carrying the small, cheap, fiddly things that stop a five-minute job becoming a lost weekend in a port miles from a chandler. On a French cruise, where a Sunday closure or an out-of-the-way harbour can put parts a day away, that buffer is worth its weight.
Here is the kit I now carry, organised by how likely each item is to save your trip, plus the French quirks that change what you should stock.
The spares that genuinely fail
Boats fail in predictable ways. Carry for the common failures and you cover most of what a season throws at you.
- Fuel filters, both primary and secondary, at least two of each. Dirty fuel and the muck stirred up by a lumpy passage clog filters at the worst moment, and this is the single most common engine stopper.
- Impeller for the raw-water pump, plus the gasket. A shredded impeller overheats the engine in minutes, and it is a ten-minute fix only if you have the spare.
- A full set of engine drive belts. Carry the exact belts for your engine, because a generic one rarely fits and a snapped alternator belt means no charging.
- Engine oil, gearbox oil and coolant, enough for a top-up and a mid-season change. French chandlers stock these but not always your grade on a Sunday.
- Hose clips in a range of sizes, jubilee clips being the cheapest insurance against a weeping hose connection.
- Electrical fuses and a length of marine wire, plus crimp connectors. A blown fuse for the bilge pump or the nav lights is trivial to fix with the right spare and miserable without.
- Bulbs for every filament fitting you still run, tied into the kit covered in our notes on navigation lights france.
- A bung kit, soft tapered wooden plugs, one tied near every through-hull. A failed seacock or split hose is a sinking risk, and a bung is the thirty-second answer.
Sealing, sticking and bodging
Half of boat repairs are temporary fixes that hold until a proper one is possible. Stock the materials that make a bodge reliable.
- Self-amalgamating tape, which fuses to itself and seals a weeping hose or a chafed cable far better than insulating tape.
- A tube of marine sealant, the Sikaflex or equivalent kind, for the leak you find at sea and the fitting you re-bed in port.
- Epoxy putty, the knead-it-and-stick-it kind, which sets underwater and has plugged more than one weeping fitting for me long enough to reach a yard.
- Amalgam of cable ties in several sizes, because a cable tie has held everything from a broken locker catch to a flapping sail tie.
- Penetrating oil and a tube of waterproof grease, for the seized fitting and the winch that grinds.
The tools to actually do the work
A spare is useless without the tool to fit it. Build a compact kit that covers the boat's systems, not a workshop you will never carry.
- A socket set and combination spanners covering your engine's fastenings, in the right standard. Many engines and fittings on European boats are metric, so a metric set is the priority, but carry an adjustable spanner for the oddities.
- Screwdrivers, both flat and cross-head, in a couple of sizes, ideally a ratcheting driver with bits to save locker space.
- Pliers, including a good pair of water-pump pliers for hose clips and an electrician's side cutter.
- A crimping tool for electrical connectors, the proper ratcheting kind, because a crimp made with pliers fails.
- A multimeter, the most useful diagnostic tool on the boat, for tracing the dead circuit before you start replacing things at random.
- A sharp knife and a hacksaw with spare blades.
- A head torch with spare batteries, because every awkward repair happens in a dark locker.
Where the chandlers are, and where they are not
Knowing where you can and cannot get parts shapes what you carry. France has good chandlers in the major sailing centres, La Rochelle, Lorient, La Trinite, the bigger Mediterranean marinas, and chains stock the common consumables. But three things catch visitors out.
First, the rhythm of closures. Many chandlers and yards shut on Sundays, often Monday mornings too, and take a proper lunch break. Arrive Saturday afternoon with a problem and you may wait until Tuesday. Carry the consumables that cannot wait.
Second, brand and fitting differences. Gas bottle fittings, electrical standards and some engine parts differ from what you know at home, so spares specific to your boat are better carried than sourced. The same logic applies to the gas covered in our boat barbecue anchorage notes.
Third, out-of-the-way harbours. Half the joy of France is the small ports and anchorages with no chandler at all, the Brittany rivers and the Corsican gulfs. The further you cruise from the big centres, the more self-sufficient your kit needs to be. If something does go badly wrong, our guide to the division 240 safety equipment visiting boats rules covers the safety gear that has to be aboard regardless.
The paperwork and contacts that count as spares
Not every spare is a physical part. The information that lets you fix or source a problem is just as worth carrying. Keep the engine manual aboard, paper or downloaded offline, because the torque figure or the belt routing you need is never available on a flaky signal in a remote anchorage. Note your engine model, its part numbers for filters and impeller, and the dimensions of your belts, so a chandler or a mechanic can supply the right item without you guessing across a language barrier.
Carry a short list of contacts too: a mechanic or two in the regions you plan to cruise, the breakdown number for your assistance cover if you have it, and the standard distress and safety-call procedure for French waters. A problem solved with a phone call to the right person beats a botched repair every time, and knowing who to call is half the battle when you are tied up in an unfamiliar port with an engine that will not start. The cheapest spare on the boat is a well-organised folder of the information you will be desperate for when something breaks.
Stowage: a kit you cannot find is no kit
The best spares kit is wasted if you tip out three lockers to find a fuse at night in a seaway. Organise it.
Keep consumables and small spares in labelled plastic boxes or zip bags, grouped by system: an engine box, an electrical box, a plumbing box. Keep the tools together in a roll or a single tool bag, not scattered. Store the lot somewhere dry and accessible, not buried under the spare anchor, and keep a written list taped inside the lid so you know what you have and what you used. Salt is the enemy, so a smear of grease on tool surfaces and a few silica sachets in the boxes keep rust at bay through a damp season.
What I would carry on a first French season
If you are kitting out for a first cruise in France and want the high-value core, start here: two of each fuel filter, a spare impeller and belts, oils and coolant, a hose-clip assortment, a fuse and wire kit, a bung kit, self-amalgamating tape, marine sealant, epoxy putty, a metric socket and spanner set, screwdrivers, a multimeter, a crimper and a head torch. That fills a couple of boxes and a tool bag, costs perhaps 150 to 300 euros built up over a season, and covers the overwhelming majority of what stops a boat.
The fancy spares can wait. The cheap, fiddly, predictable ones are what get you home, and the discipline of carrying them is the same discipline that keeps the boat refrigeration france running and the lights working. A boat that can fix itself is a boat that keeps cruising, and in a country where a closed chandler can cost you days, that self-sufficiency is the difference between a good season and a frustrating one.
