February is over and the 2018 boating season is fully underway. Is your boat ready? Ours wasn’t !!
As we go through our checklist, I realized that while we work hard to keep our boat ready, we still had some surprises. Maybe you will too. These things are all worth checking before you put your boat back into use.
Keep in mind , these are just some of the areas that should be looked at, and ours is a small trailerable boat. Obviously, larger vessels have more and different things to check.
Safety Ready
- Lights: Check the Nav and Anchor lights to insure they work.
- Horn: Test your horn, portable airhorn, or whistle.
- Fire Extinquisher: Is it easily accessible? Is the status indicator close to the red area? If so, replace it.
- PFDs / Throwable: Do you have enough of them? Different sizes? Inspect them. Are they rotting or torn?
- Blower: Hit the switch and let it run for a few minutes.
- Bilge Pump: If you have a manual “on” switch, turn it on and listen for the pump to run. If you have a separate float switch or “auto” setting, it may be worth installing the plug and running some water into the bilge to insure its operation. (I’ll sometimes put soap in the bilge area when testing just to clean the bilge).
- Btw: The last two are sometimes overlooked because they “always work“. Remember that this is a boat. Wires rot, connections fail, and sometimes parts go bad.
Motor / Drive
- Fuel Delivery: Do you use ethanol fuel? How old is the fuel? Do you use a fuel stabilizer to prolong the life of the fuel? This is also a great time to replace the water separator filter. While swapping our filter, it was clear that these things get away from you. I had written the date on the old filter, it was 13 months old! (Where does the time go?)
- Btw: If you have an outboard motor some things to look out for are dried out or worn fuel hose, primer bulbs, tank fittings, and o-rings inside of the fuel connectors.
- Engine: There are number of areas that fall into the “inspect, clean, or replace“ category. Spark plugs, Distributor cap, rotor, alternator belt / power steering belt. While newer motors typically have a single “drive belt”, if you have an older boat like us that has separate belts, make certain that these belts are as tight as possible.
- Batteries: Are your batteries up to snuf? If you have a battery maintainer on your boat, has it been plugged in? This is one of those things that can leave you frustrated at the boat ramp if you don’t check them at home.
- Outboard / Outdrive: Grease, grease, grease! Find every greasefitting you can and GREASE them! Steering rack / ram, pivot points, gimbal bearing, outdrive hinge pins, and anything with a fitting.
- Prop: If you remove the prop(s) to grease the propshaft, this is a great opportunity to check for fishing line that may have wrapped up behind the prop. Over time, this can destroy the propshaft seal allowing water into the drive. I actually do this inspection many times over the season. I discover fishing line on the propshaft more times than not.
Hey, yes you!! Is Your Boat Ready? Look over here!!
This is the part where I acknowledge that everybody has different comfort levels with this stuff. Most of these things are relatively simple to inspect at the minimum and it certainly doesn’t hurt to get familiar with these important areas of your boat. I would encourage you to do what you ARE comfortable doing and find a shop that is reputable to do everything else.
Remember, the goal is to get our boat ready to enjoy the entire season, not just the next trip. Hope this info helps . Please leave a comment and don’t forget to subscribe below.
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