During World War II, Royal Air Force pilots blamed gremlins for unexplained glitches in machinery and systems. Gremlins caused mission aborts, or, at the least, made flying your Spitfire or Lancaster a lot more interesting. Gremlins didn’t live just in WWII aircraft, though—the Navy had them, too—and they still abound: Every skipper knows they’re all over every boat, just waiting to work their mischief. One of gremlins’ favorite times of year is fitting-out season, when they wake from their winter’s slumber to discombobulate folks anxious to get back on the water. You can’t get rid of gremlins, but you can make them less troublesome if you know where to look for their handiwork. Even so, they can still jump out and bite you.
One warm spring day a few years ago I planned to move my boat from the yard to my slip at a nearby marina. I charged the batteries, checked the oil in the diesels and transmissions, topped-up the coolant and fired up. Everything worked fine, so I cast off and backed out into the channel. Oops—the wheel felt like it was connected to nothing, just kept on turning to both port and starboard, and the rudders didn’t even quiver. Gremlins had struck: They had bled the air from my old Hynautic steering system, which relied on pressurized air to push the hydraulic fluid where it needed to go. In the three years I owned the boat, I never had to pump up the steering system, but over the winter, gremlins had let all the air out. Thanks to twin screws, I was able to make it unscathed to my slip, where a few minutes’ work with a bicycle pump fixed the problem. After this, I checked the steering air pressure regularly—and never had to pump it up again. Gremlins…
Modern hydraulic steering doesn’t need air pressure to work; instead, you want to bleed all the air out of the lines. Spring fitting-out is a good time to do this. It’s a simple process, but it’s easier with two people. Basically, it involves cranking the wheel hard over and cracking open one bleeder valve on the steering cylinder, then cranking the wheel the other way and opening the other bleeder valve. While doing this, add steering fluid as necessary via the helm. Read the manual for details on your particular steering system. Your boat will steer more precisely with no air in the lines, especially important if you like to drive fast.
Gremlins Love Ice
“You are certainly correct about winter gremlins,” said Bob Petzold of Petzold’s Marine Center located a few miles up the Connecticut River from the Power & Motoryacht offices. Petzold said many common problems show up every spring, especially in boats winterized by DIY owners. For example, they forget to open the through-hull ball valves and seacocks so all the water can drain out. Trapped water can freeze and crack the valve body. Replacing the valves means pulling the boat back out of the water. Where did the water come from, anyhow, when you’re sure you drained it all out in the fall? Gremlins. Or maybe condensation in the hoses. No, in actual fact, you forgot to drain it in the first place. Next year you’ll remember.
Ice causes other problems, too, continued Petzold. Water left in shower sumps can freeze and crack the sump. Owners who winterize their own motors often forget to drain and winterize their cockpit and bow washdowns, too. To make that checklist even longer, some boats now have windshield washers that will also freeze and burst the hoses. This creates an amusement park for gremlins to do their worst, splitting hoses and valves all over the boat. Some won’t be discovered until the first time you try to use the system, which, again, means you’ll be hauling your boat again shortly after launching in the spring.
“Boat owners should always check their props, cutless bearings and stern-drive bellows prior to spring launch,” added Petzold. A split bellows can sink the boat, and replacing props and cutless bearings also mean re-hauling. Finally, he added, “Don’t forget to re-install the bilge plugs.” Gremlins love it when you do that.
Ice will damage things on board that you can hardly see. Many inboard-powered boats have waterlift mufflers tucked way under the cockpit that both stifle noise and prevent exhaust water from flowing back into the engine. There’s always water in the muffler, which should be drained out when winterizing the boat. Many DIY’ers overlook this. Then the water in the muffler freezes over the winter and when spring arrives, the muffler has cracked from ice pressure. Draining the muffler is easy: just remove a plug. Word to the wise: Put the plug somewhere you’ll see it in the spring, rather than leave it resting on the muffler. Try the galley sink, next to the bilge plugs. Otherwise, you might forget to replace it and exhaust water—and maybe exhaust gas, too—will run into the bilge.
Warm-Weather Gremlins
Just laying a boat up for an extended period will entice gremlins to get bored and cause trouble; they don’t need freezing winters. Boats stored at Saunders Yachtworks in Gulf Shores, Alabama, rarely see serious ice, but even warmer weather brings problems. “Dead batteries have always been, and always will be, a springtime blues issue,” said M. Boyd Siegel, Saunders’ V.P. and General Manager. When winterizing the boat, fully charge the batteries, then isolate them so they hold their charge, he said. “Unhook everything but a float charger, if it’s possible and safe.” (The good news is, in warm winter weather like they usually get along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, dead batteries don’t freeze, although leaving a lead-acid battery discharged doesn’t help its lifespan.)
Chris Edwards, Saunders’ Vessel Systems Manager, said, “The systems department sees refrigerator and A/C systems that need a charge because they’ve been left off too long. These systems typically need descaling, too.” Oftentimes there are clogged strainers, due to lack of maintenance. It’s easier to clean a strainer when the gunk inside it is still wet; let it dry and it’s often a chore. Do it when you lay up the boat, and periodically during the season. Gremlins love clogged strainers: They will stop the flow of cooling water just when it’s most inconvenient.
Look for frozen steering and control cables on outboard boats, said Siegel. “As we get away from mechanical linkages and cable steering, we forget the common maintenance issues you have when storing these systems: When they sit for extended periods, they can get stiff and even frozen in place.” Again, he said, establish routine maintenance, including periodic lubrication or just regularly exercising shift, throttle and steering cables.
Impellers can get brittle from not moving all winter and not pump when you start them in the spring, according to Siegel. This can affect any equipment with an impeller: main engines, generators, outboards and so forth. “This is maintenance that needs to be tracked and performed based on use,” he said. “Keep a log of your impellers, filters and oil maintenance; don’t rely on your memory.” The impeller can lose fins, too, Siegel added. Some skippers pull their impellers at layup and replace them at launch time. That’s also a good opportunity to check for cracked or worn fins, replace cover gaskets, etc. Change impellers before they lose fins; otherwise you have to track down the pieces and remove them before they clog the works and cause real problems.
Maybe the Gremlins Are Us
Jim Valiante, aka Jim the Boat Guy, a mobile marine mechanic, isn’t convinced gremlins are totally to blame. “The major issues we see in the spring are self-inflicted, a result of bad winterization,” he said. DIY winter covers that don’t breathe create mold issues—upholstery can take a beating from this. Poorly supported covers cobbled together from tarps and twine collapse from the weight of accumulated water or snow, which often breaks windshields. “Some people think their cockpit and bow covers are winter covers—you know how that ends.” It’s even worse when the drain plugs weren’t removed: “The cover fails, the bilge fills with water and takes the engine along with it.”
Like Siegel, Valiante also brought up dead batteries. A fully charged battery is OK in cold weather—the acid electrolyte won’t freeze. But as the battery discharges, the acid turns back into water, which can freeze and ruin the battery. “Put the battery away fully charged, or, if you’re leaving it in the boat, add a battery tender,” he advised. Otherwise, you’ll likely be buying new batteries in the spring.
Some people are lucky, said Valiante; they winterize their boats improperly, but get away with it, sometimes for years. Then one year their luck runs out. Maybe they fail to drain the lower unit of their outdrive, there’s water in it that freezes and cracks the case. “I see a few of those every year,” he said. As for mechanicals, Valiante sees “the typical gremlins” at work (so he does believe!) causing locked-up starters, condensation in distributor caps and so forth—mostly from sweating under unventilated covers, or simply getting wet. “Nothing crazy,” he said, and mostly preventable with proper preparation for winter lay-up.
Finally, Heather Petzold-Bell, Operations Coordinator at Petzold’s Marine Center, added one last piece of advice: Every year a few owners arrive to pick up their boats, but they can’t get the motors started. “We sea-trial every boat after launching, so we know the boat runs,” she said. The sea-trial crew turns the batteries off when they shut down—and the owner fails to turn them back on. So, before blaming gremlins, or the boatyard, “Remember to turn on the batteries.”
Why Doesn’t a Charged Battery Freeze?
A fully charged lead-acid battery (this includes AGM batteries) contains an electrolyte that’s mostly sulfuric acid; the freezing point of the electrolyte is very low, around -70 degrees for flooded batteries, as low as -90 degrees for AGM. Unless you store your boat in Antarctica, chances are it won’t get that cold. But as the battery discharges, the acid electrolyte converts to water and lead sulfate; the lead sulfate is deposited back onto the plates, the water remains in the electrolyte, and the freezing point of the electrolyte increases. A half-discharged battery will freeze at around 5 degrees, a fully discharged battery at around 20 degrees. Anyone who lives north of the Mason-Dixon line regularly sees dead-of-winter temperatures drop to those levels.
If you want to keep your batteries alive for another season, make sure they’re fully charged when you lay up your boat. Fortunately, the self-discharge rate of a lead-acid battery is very low in cold temperatures—as little as 2 percent per month at 32 degrees—so a charged battery should make it through the winter without freezing. Ideally, remove the batteries and store them in a cool, well-ventilated shed or garage, with a battery minder connected to keep them topped up. But if you can’t do that, top them up and let Old Man Winter do his worst. If your boat’s not sleeping with polar bears, your batteries should be fine.
Read “Spring Cleaning for your Engine Room” ▶
