Fall is the time to get your boat ready for spring

If you want to avoid boat problems next spring, the time to act is now. That’s the word of Dorothy Zammitt, who with her husband David runs Lockeman's Hardware and Boats in Detroit.

According to Zammitt, spring boat preparation should consist of three steps: hook up the battery, add fuel and turn the key. Not only does that put you on the water when your excitement is highest, but it also helps you avoid the logjam at the boat shop. Spring is their busiest time because so many people put off fall maintenance only to discover problems when they want to go boating.

Instead they wait. Which you won’t have to if you manage your business now.

"We mostly have a lot of people (in spring) who have problems because they didn't put their boat away properly in the fall," said Zammitt, whose shop repairs Johnson and Evinrude outboard motors. "Fifty percent of that is fuel related."

The most common problems are gasoline that wasn't stabilized, she said. Summer gasoline blends contain ethanols that deteriorate, and cold weather speeds the process. Boat owners who don't stabilize or drain their fuel in the fall can face gummed-up carburetors or water in fuel lines, both of which can require extensive repairs come spring.

Even under ideal conditions, ethanols tend to cause problems with outboard motors, Zammitt said. Ethanols attack soft engine parts like o-rings, gaskets and fuel lines.

"Ethanol is very harsh," Sammitt said. "We are across the industry are finding an awful lot of ethanol problems, not only in boats but in lawnmowers and snowblowers too."

Zammitt advises boaters to avoid ethanol as much as possible. It's better to use 89 octane gasoline and try to turn over fuel as often as possible because gasoline starts to deteriorate in as little as three weeks.

Zammitt said the rest of the boat problems she sees in the spring can be broken down as 25 percent bad or weak battery that wasn't properly stored in the fall, and 25 percent problems that owners ignored in the fall but got worse over the winter.

Battery storage is simple enough. Remove the battery from any potential electric load, charge it to capacity and store it in a cool, dry place. If you have a traditional battery with vent caps, top it off with distilled water before storing. UsedBoatYard.com also recommends periodically charging a battery through the winter to make sure your battery is fully charged when you’re ready to boat in the spring.

As for repairs that go untended, some are as simple as a tuneup, but others are more serious. Zammitt said she has one customer who blew out his headgasket in the fall, but opted to winterize the boat and get the engine repaired in the spring. But that broken gasket allowed water to seep into the engine, and now the engine is rusted on the inside. What began as a $300 repair could now reach $4,000 -- and might not solve the problem.

"He didn't realize this was a minor problem, but the interior of your motor does not like rust," she said. "And now he may have a continuing problem."