Coastguard – ‘Winterising’ your boat

By the time you read this we will have our beloved Hibiscus Rescue 1 back in service. 

It has been a long seven months since we said goodbye to her for a major refit. The refit basically leaves us with a new boat and our crew cannot wait to get reacquainted with her. 

It’s also the time of year when we need to start looking at winterising our boats. For those who don’t use their boat much over winter, there are things you can do to ensure safe boating when the season allows. A few simple steps to winterise your boat now, can save you a lot of aggravation and expense come summer.

• Probably the best way to ensure your boat remains ready for summer, is to use it regularly over winter! Remember to keep an eye on the weather (the Coastguard app, for iPhone or Android smartphone, makes it easy) if heading out.

• Look after your engine. Engines don’t like inactivity, so paying attention to the engine before laying your boat up is especially important. In fact, if there’s just one thing you look at before you lay your boat up, it should be the motor. 

• Check the fuel: Left for any length of time, fuel can spoil through degradation or contamination (such as from condensation in the tank). If you’ve got a full tank when you go to lay up your boat for winter, consider adding a fuel stabiliser – or, if you have less than half a tank, drain it completely before use in the summer.

• Now is a good time to give some love to the engine, in the form of fresh engine oil and by replacing the oil filter. Never hurts to also check the gearbox, or outdrive oil as well, if applicable. You’ll help remove contaminants that could cause issues after months of sitting around, plus you won’t have to worry about trying to sort out a service once summer rolls around.

• Where possible, make sure the batteries are kept somewhere warm and dry over the winter, on a trickle charger to keep them fully topped up (a cheap, low wattage solar cell can provide enough juice to keep your batteries topped up). Batteries left uncharged for long periods may need to be replaced completely.

This is the last column for the summer from Coastguard Hibiscus, but you can be sure we don’t hibernate for the autumn and winter. We are still on call every day of the week and you will see us out on the water continuing with our training to help keep you safe on the water.