You love your boat. You want to do
everything you can to take care of it—from washing and cleaning it often to regularly
inspecting all of its essential systems. If anything, you’re more careful about your boat than most
people you know. And deep down, you’re only that careful because you enjoy the
heck out of your boat and want it to last as long as it possibly can.
And that’s a potential problem.
Why? Because many boat owners can sometimes do more harm
than good when they first get a boat—even if they think they’re doing the best
thing. If you want to be sure that you’re not making these rookie mistakes,
check through some of these common ways in which you might be doing your boat
more harm than you ever thought:
#1: Cleaning with the
wrong products
You clean, you clean, and you clean. You scrub, you wipe,
you rinse, you repeat. And, as a reward for all of your manual labor, your boat
only seems to be getting worse. The colors are fading and the stains aren’t
going anywhere. What’s going on? How could it be possible to work so hard and
see so few results?
The usual answer: you just aren’t using the right boat cleaning supplies. You use a general cleaner for aluminum, you use soap on your
fiberglass, and you’re confused about why you aren’t seeing any results. It’s
far better to match the cleaning product with the task at hand—and to use safe,
biodegradable materials when possible.
#2: Failure to
winterize
If you live in a mild climate, it’s tempting to ignore the
fact that winter can do a lot of damage to boats. You figure that the cold
weather can’t really harm anything, so you skip necessary winterization
and hope that your proper storage techniques will do the work of keeping your
boat taken care of during the cold weather. But now you have a myriad of
problems ranging from ice to a malfunctioning engine—and you’re not sure where
you went wrong. Next time, prepare for winter.
#3: Running the
engine on dry land
Boat motors are designed for the water. We know that, you
know that, everyone knows that. But when you buy a new boat, it’s tempting to
show it off or to feel like you have to “warm up” the engine prior to use.
Don’t run your engine without the water necessary to keep it cool, as this can
lead to over-heating and “crunching” noises that you never want to hear in the
first place.
#4: Forgetting that
knowledge is power
You might know a lot about taking care of cars, but remember
that boating is an entirely different monster. If you go into boating assuming
it will be the same as maintaining a car, you’re in for a rude awakening. Study
up on all of the necessary ways to take care of your boat. Know which cleaners
work best for which job. And if you have any questions, contact the experts at BoatLife who
can help you find the right product for the right task.
