I bought a new Ritchie surface mounted compass yesterday to replace the old, perhaps original, compass mounted on the protruding instrument panel just above the steering wheel. The old one works, sort of; when you tap it sharply the compass jogs to life and re-aligns itself approximately in the direction of north. But the housing is badly corroded and I imagine the internal light no longer works. Not worth saving, I thought.
But then, as I looked at the two instruments side-by-side, I thought of all those beautifully re-chromed fittings Tim Jones is about to reinstall on his Satatogan. And I realized that this old compass could probably look just as good, and would certainly add a touch of class to the boat. So I've decided to use the Ritchie in this summer's quickie cleanup project and send the old compass off for re-plating. It'll take hours to prep it, and who knows how long and how much for re-chroming. But it will surely be done in time for the winter restoration project, and it will be very satisfying to know one of the original parts will be coming home to grace the dash once again.
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