Keep in water for winter?

Pirate Lady

Pirate Lady

Well-Known Member
Jun 2, 2020
7,542
Chesapeake Bay, Middle River
Boat Info
Sundancer 250 ‘91
Engines
7.4 Bravo 1
Keeping this regional rather than in the nationwide Winterize forum.
Y’all know in the upper Chesapeake the trend has been very mild winters. I have never kept a boat in the water during winter.
My slip fee is calendar year so to keep in water costs me nothing more. After all i spent on this boat this summer, i can save $650 from land storage.
Making sense? In water no extra cost, put on land $650.
At the head of Middle River far more boats these days stay in rather than haul and block.
Looking for opinions from folks around here that are familiar with our winters these days.
I will talk to the company that winterized it last year about doing it in water.
PS. My marina will short haul, power wash so i can paint bottom and outdrive in spring.
 
I would love to be able to pull my boat for winter, if it was a 250 DA and I had a trailer it would be coming out. And I might add my our boat is in fresh water.
 
RBB said:
I would love to be able to pull my boat for winter, if it was a 250 DA and I had a trailer it would be coming out. And I might add my our boat is in fresh water.
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Last winter i was on land, had manifold and risers replaced, there was a HUGE HUGE boat on blocks, shrink wrapped. A bazillion jack stands holding it it up and all i could think of was why? A boat that size be better in water and have even support.
 
Just check your insurance when we left the boat in we had to change it they considered that a no lay up period so our rates went up.
 
I stay in the water year round, StateFarm doesn’t care. They do ask about winterizing. I’d recommend a few things tho,

A good engine room heater. CG approved! As our temps go up and down so much it’s nice to have a constant temp down there

Good batteries, dead of winter isn’t a great time to find one dead

Make sure to remove sodas and beer. They can freeze and leave you a mess.

Get a Y connection for your 30amp shoreline. The a adapter male to female. Purchase a sump pump that has no float switch. Some 1.5” pvc. Build the tubing to be just a bit wider than the beam of your boat and connect it to the pump. Place it behind your boat on a good line making sure it’s just above the bottom of your slip at any tide. Plug the pump into a outdoor timer and the timer into the adapter.
Once it gets cold and the water is cold enough to freeze set the timer to cut on and run for 15 or 30 minutes every other hour. No ice around the boat.

The most important thing, go check your boat! Often! Once we get a hard freeze it’s important.
 
I have left my previous boat (31' sailboat) in the water during winter for the past 8 years and plan on doing the same with the new boat. My marina places "fans" in every other slip to keep water moving. Never had an issue with freezing around the dock/boat even when Frog Mortar creek was frozen. You lose so much of the late fall/early spring season if you winter on land....
 
Stee6043 said:
Our marina uses a version of these to protect the fixed docks. They are only activated when it's clear that ice will start and/or continue to form. If left on "all winter" they eat up a lot more than just ice (ie. gobs of electricity $$$).
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Agreed. I left that part out. Apologies and good catch!
 
I stay in the water every other winter and haven't had any issues not far from you. We have covered sheds that are full during the winter, drawing alot of boats from the shore. Our marina has a bubbler system and I add my own ice eater when needed although I haven't had to do that in a few years. As well as checking the verbiage in your insurance policy you may want to verify that heaters are allowed at your marina. Ours explicitly prohibits unattended heaters after we had a fire in the early 90's.
 
quality time said:
I stay in the water every other winter and haven't had any issues not far from you. We have covered sheds that are full during the winter, drawing alot of boats from the shore. Our marina has a bubbler system and I add my own ice eater when needed although I haven't had to do that in a few years. As well as checking the verbiage in your insurance policy you may want to verify that heaters are allowed at your marina. Ours explicitly prohibits unattended heaters after we had a fire in the early 90's.
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I am loath to leave a heater in the engine bay. Seen way too many stories in BoatUS magazine. But i was talking this morning to the Chief mechanic that just fixed my boat. He "strongly" advised against it unless I live-aboard or plan to use the boat frequently thru the winter. Since I neither of these, he said pull it and I wont have to worry about it. Our marina does not use a bubbler system, but if it got to where it was icing up, i could always have it pulled. Got a lot of time to think it over.
 
Pirate Lady said:
I am loath to leave a heater in the engine bay. Seen way too many stories in BoatUS magazine. But i was talking this morning to the Chief mechanic that just fixed my boat. He "strongly" advised against it unless I live-aboard or plan to use the boat frequently thru the winter. Since I neither of these, he said pull it and I wont have to worry about it. Our marina does not use a bubbler system, but if it got to where it was icing up, i could always have it pulled. Got a lot of time to think it over.
Click to expand...

So I have stayed in the water for the past 6 years. It does take a lot of prep to do so and as mentioned clear it with your insurance. As long as your close to the boat and can check on it regularly for high tides/wind etc. you should be fine. If I can get under the covered dock I don't shrink wrap either. I do go over board on winterizing though, save that for another thread.

The one thing I could not do without is my remote monitoring system, that is what lets me sleep at night even though I am five miles from my boat. I don't use any heaters unless I am on the boat. I don't stay on the boat in the winter at all, only do work and projects that never seem to end. I will say there have been a few winter dock parties though.

I do get pulled in the spring and get the bottom washed and painted, new zincs and fresh wax. That almost equals the cost of staying on the hard and doing some of that work yourself. Structurally it is better for the boat to stay in the water. I'll get slammed for this one but, boats were not meant to stay on their keels for months on end in freezing temperatures. That right there produces stress cracks more then rough water does.

I have boat neighbors that have never pulled there boat and also never really check on it either. Other neighbors leave there block heaters on and never even winterize the boat because they stay on it in the winter on the weekends. I would say a third of my marina's larger boats stay in the water. Most not even shrink wrapped.
 
We routinely over-winter in the water for 3 of every 4 years. That's followed by a short-haul and bottom/underwater hardware work in the Spring. Then the 4th year, we haul and block for on-land storage, plus typical springtime chores -- but also maybe including prop tuning if necessary, cutless bearing or strut work as necessary, etc.

We fully winterize the boat first; I do freshwater (usually/mostly with an air compressor), raw water, and ACs. I usually have the (previous) yard do engines and genset because they had a Radio Flyer sorta thing they could roll down the rock, with its own antifreeze tank and pump, so they could do both engines and genset in under an hour. IOW, not a huge labor bill. The boat stays connected to shorepower.

I don't shrink wrap. OTOH, we have a hardtop, and the combo of hardtop and enclosure works fine for snow load and shedding. Shoveling snow out of the cockpit, occasionally, a) sucks and b) looks goofy. No huge problem, though.

I have my own de-icer, and I could turn it on when/if it looks like the marina would freeze in.

Our insurance company considers this a winter layup.

Happens we're intending to do a land thing this year, mostly because this is now a new-to-us boat with known issues I want to address over winter. Then back to the routine.

-Chris
 
The Chief also said my 454 i/o sits low in the boat, much of it below the water line which makes winterizing difficult and hard to guarantee he got it all drained. I don’t know, thats what he said.
Most boats at my marina stay in which prompted me to think about it, but they are mostly inboard big boats.
i will probably pull it, $600 is cheaper than a new engine.
 
The engine room heaters only come on when the temp goes below 38 I believe and shut down one the temp goes back above 42. I use a Camaflow. It is CG approved, that’s a must!

It’s all up to you and what you are comfortable with
 
Xtreme heaters are designed just for this purpose. No risk of sparking or fire.
 
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