Maintaining Your Anchor System
A Comprehensive Anchor System Maintenance Checklist for Cruisers Owning a boat in British Columbia is all about freedom—whether you’re exploring Vancouver’s coastline or cruising around Vancouver Island. But every boater knows that safety and reliability start with proper boat maintenance. While propulsion, steering, and navigation systems usually get the most attention, one area often overlooked […]
Spring Checkup for Electronics
Spring Electronic Checkup Spring commissioning is an exciting time, full of anticipation for the season ahead! Ensuring that your boat’s electronics are ready to go can help you avoid any unexpected hiccups during your first cruise. Even if everything was working perfectly when you decommissioned your boat last fall, a quick spring commissioning checkup can […]
Getting Your Boat’s Ground Tackle Ready
Ground tackle is one area that maintenance is often overlooked. While typically simple in makeup, there are a myriad of ways for ground tackle to not function when you most need it to. Often, it is the result of poor improper or deferred maintenance. To be confident of your ground tackle’s holding ability, it must […]
Every Engine Must Exhale
A proper exhaust system and its maintenance is vital to an engine’s performance. “Out goes the bad air, in comes the good”. A properly sized and well-designed marine exhaust system is the best way to get rid of the bad air and optimize an engine’s performance. Anything that inhibits the flow of exhaust gases creates […]
Maintaining Your Boat’s Attitude – Trim Tabs
Regardless of its size, if your boat has a planing or semi-planing hull, its degree of trim can significantly impact its operation. Trim tabs look and function in much the same way as the flaps on an airplane, adjusting lift by raising or lowering the boat’s attitude to improve boat speed, fuel economy, accommodate weight […]
Preparing for Winterization
As winter approaches and temperatures begin to drop, boaters start to think about winterization for their vessels. Some hire professionals to do the job and others like to invest a little time doing a portion or all of it themselves. Whatever the case, the process is the same. When winterization is performed properly it will […]
Understanding Crankcase Oil Ratings
The fuel is what makes your engine fire, but it’s the crankcase oil that keeps it running. It’s important to use the proper type and grade of oil, and to do this, you need to understand the alpha numeric rating printed on the container. Before switching to a different brand or type of oil, check […]
Caring for Your Boat’s Transducer
Hidden below the waterline, the transducers are the eyes of our depth sounders and fish finders. They rarely cross our minds until the boat is hauled and we see them protruding from the hull or suspended from the transom. The fact that we can treat them so indifferently is a tribute to their design and […]
Mid-season Preventive Boat Maintenance
Preventive Boat Maintenance makes for a failure-free boating season Mid-Season Preventative Boat Maintenance – Perform some quick and simple inspections for a carefree balance of the boating season. Whether a boat gets used daily, weekly, or only on occasion, it deserves a little TLC. In general, this involves simply eyeballing the various systems and making […]