It's hard to overemphasize what a victory it was to receive a bunch of these goofy little light bulbs in the mail today. What are they for? They light the fuel and tachometer gauges for the two Yanmar diesel engines on Double Diamond. When these little bulbs burn out, it is almost impossible to see these gauges while running the engines at night.
It's a small detail, really. But it often seems that successful cruising is all about the details, much like everything else in life.
Onboard, the details are endless: Changing the oil at the right time, everytime. Checking the fuel filters, the watermaker filters, the sea strainer. Swapping out a frayed rope for a new one. Using tinned marine wire, not just the house stuff from the hardware store. Repairing small holes in sails - before they become big rips. Adjusting the tension on the lifelines. Double-checking that the positive is connected to the positive (and not to the negative) before throwing the breaker. Making sure the outboard has gas before making that trip to shore.
Paying attention to the details on a boat can be mind-numbing at times (especially if your mind is already numb - note to self) and one must be careful about where to draw the line about every detail being absolutely perfect. Otherwise, you might never leave the dock - as it's been said many times by cruisers far wiser and more experienced than us. Still, there is always the possibility that some combination of ignored details could align in a way (and at the wrong time), wrecking a crossing. Or your boat. Getting the right details right while letting others slide seems to be one of sailings dark arts.
But about those bulbs.
Honestly, if we want to see the gauges at night, all we have to do is illuminate them with our headlamps - something we wear religiously when sailing at night (another detail). It's pretty easy to turn on your headlamp and shine it on the gauges. Who needs lighted gauges when you have headlamps? But still: They. Should. Work. Damnit.
But does Yanmar, (the manufacturer of our engines) stock these light bulbs as spare parts for the gauges they supply with their engines? No. Do they tell you where to source them? No. They also don't tell you - or even tell their Yanmar dealers - anything about these lightbulbs. No manufacture name. No generic bulb part number. No size. No wattage. No nothing.
Thank God for the Internet. Yet even searching the net for these bulbs was something of a treasure hunt.
First, I used the search term "Yanmar Bulb", which gave me lots of parts contacts and marketing info about Yanmar products, but no hard leads on light bulbs. I tried all the word combinations I could think of with my limited "light bulb vocabulary", but not until I dug through Google's images of "12 volt bulbs" did I see something that looked similar - too large, but similar - and it was called a "WEDGE bulb".
The term "Wedge" was some real meat and it led to a ton of images of wedge style bulbs - still all too large - but it was real progress. I smelled blood.
And then I stumbled across a "SUBMINATURE wedge bulb" Whoo-wee!!! That search brought some very close candidates, but alas, no prize. When I tried "subminature wedge bulb SAILBOAT" I found a conversation on a sailing forum about PEANUT bulbs for VDO gauges. Reading through the thread I discovered that VDO is the manufacturer of Yanmar branded gauges. Bingo. "VDO subminature wedge PEANUT bulb" led me to Downwind Marine in San Diego who had them online and in stock - $12.02 for a package of 4 bulbs.
My God. I immediately ordered four packages.
All 16 bulbs arrived in the mail today - even though really, we only need 5 or 6 at the moment. And did the detail freak in me smile from ear to frickin' ear as I ripped opened the package? Hell yeah. "SUBMINATURE WEDGE PEANUT BULBS 12V"!!! Whoo Hoo!!!