You are correct and the reason is simple. Manufacturers make boats, not
equipment, but they can't sell their boats without equipment. The boat price
however, must be held to competitive values or no boats will sell. Those
market pressures force manufacturers to equip their boats with less than the
best. It needs to be said that an individual cannot do better in value for
the buck, but if a customer builds his own, or contracts and controls the
build, he can get better, but it is never cheaper. As another responder
stated, size and complexity adds to maintenance cost. I guess you get what
you pay for. People do not work for free. Boats are difficult to work on.
This adds more time to almost every task. Your list of failures appear
reasonable, most of them are most probably simple infant mortality. Only
extensive testing will wring those faults out and that too, adds cost. The
real test for your statement comes at the 3 to 4 year mark. That's when the
cheap equipment sees end of life. My father had a good freind that was a
Gloucester lobsterman. He wouldn't put anything on his boat that had not
been used successfully for thirty years first. His boat wasn't pretty, but
it didn't fail much either.
Steve

wrote in message
ups.com...
Boat equipment, from engines to simple fastening screws, are poorly
made and lacking in quality control.

If aircraft had failures only one twentieth as often as boats, both
sail and power, the loss of lives would ground all commercial airlines
and private planes.

My last new boat (expensive), from a major and long time manufacturer
of reputed high quality craft, and only the best rated equipment,
within the first year:

port engine -- fuel pump failed once
port trim tab -- hydraulic pump failed once
engine synchronizer failed once
air conditioning in saloon failed -- compressor needed replacement once
bulbs burned out twice in both port and starboard running lights
generator failed to start three times and to run more than an hour in
two instances (plenty of good fuel on board)
SAT TV failed and required new chip board once
other failures, less major, but still important to safe and dependable
operation