how to maintenance my boat in salt water?
August 27, 2010 by Builder Wong
Filed under Maintenance & Repairs
I am relocating in to a residence with a vessel wharf no lift though I’m not certain if we should keep my vessel in salt H2O for prolonged durations of time, we have a 20′ feet stingray, is there any way we can wash out a engine whilst a vessel is in salt water? should we unequivocally paint a bottom? for how prolonged can we keep a vessel in salt water?
thnks
Ok, as long as you have the right stuff on the hull, leaving a boat in salt water is no problem at all.
If I remember rightly, stingrays are fiberglass hulls, so you don’t to worry about wooden hulls leaking because of no primer.
You really should anti-foul the hull, at least once every 2 to 3 years, if not you’re going to have a hell of a lot of growth on the bottom, and that leads to slower speeds, more fuel consumption, and it will clog up inlets and outlets ports, and if you don’t anti-foul your engine parts that are underwater, e.g. the prop you’ll have the same problem.
Find a good anti-foul, giving it two thick coats will save you a lot of hassle in the future, I promise.
Most people leave their boats in the water for just the main season, i.e. march to september (that’s here in the UK mind you, not sure where you are). Then it gets taken out for a quick clean, and if needed a new coat of anti-foul.
You can leave it in the water indefinitely though, it will come to no harm as long as there is some anti-foul and you have an aluminium sacrificial anode attached to the hull to protect all the metallic compounds in the paint, and on the hull.
You can’t flush an engine with salt water as I’m sure you know, as the whole point is to remove the corrosive sodium chloride (the salt) and any other grit from the engine. If your engine lifts clear of the water, then flush it normally with fresh water, but if you can’t you will definitely have to take the boat out of the water during the off season. Sitting still in salt water without any use or flushing will create a big headache in the future.
The only other way I can think of flushing would be connecting the fresh water to engine while it’s still underwater if you can reach, and then flushing, although I’m not certain how effective that would be as the salt water would return fairly quickly.
Hope that helps, feel free to contact me if you want to ask anything else!
Benny