Kindle Notes & Highlights
Inboard and sterndrive boats between 26 and 40 feet: Required to carry two B-I class extinguishers or one BII class extinguisher.
Batteries discharge in as little as a week or two when the boat sits idle. One of the handiest gadgets you can have to combat a dead battery is an emergency battery jumper. This portable device has battery clamps that attach to the boat battery. The battery jumper recharges when plugged into a wall outlet. I keep one charging up in the garage and throw it in my truck when I head to the lake, just in case.
On the water, there are no roads to follow, and a boat behaves differently than a car.
fact that may be alarming on your first trip out. Relax, though. This is natural, and it's not a problem as long as your crew remains seated and you look around before you turn. Looking before you turn is normal in cars, but in boating, traffic comes from any direction, making awareness even more important.
Adjusting the ride of the boat involves managing the trim while taking into consideration the conditions on the water, as well as pitch, yaw, and roll.
When you get it right, the boat feels right — steady but free on the water.
1. Put trim tabs in the upright position.
Trim your outboard or sterndrive engine all the way down.
Safely stow the key out of sight but not out of mind.
Slow and steady is practically a guarantee of success.
To make a soft, safe landing, all you really need is a slow and thoughtful approach.
Never approach docking at a speed above idle. In fact, it's often better to shift in and out of gear to go even slower.
But especially when it's windy, a boat is easier to pull than it is to push — the propeller can do whichever you tell it to do.
It's much easier to control the boat when backing against the wind or current than when backing with it.
Go slowly. If you hit the dock at a slow speed, the impact will be mostly embarrassing, but not damaging or life threatening. (Go ahead and forgive yourself right now because sometimes you will hit the dock. It's a fact of boating life.)
"privileged vessel"
"burdened vessel."
avoid collisions.
Nothing in the rules excuses a vessel captain for failure to take all necessary actions to avoid a collision.
following the rules doesn't relieve him or her of responsibility if some other action could have avoided the collision.
You may think it's kind of dumb to require a boater to maintain a lookout, but you'd be surprised how many boaters let their boats travel in one direction while they look in another.
To tilt the scale even further in the direction of value, many boaters learn to handle some of the most basic boat maintenance
themselves.
That frequency is based on hours of operation, instead of miles driven, as you're used to with your car.
And, just like when your car manual says to change the oil once per year or every 5,000 miles, your boat's engine manual says "change the oil once a year or every X hours of operation."
The pump makes it extremely easy to pump out the oil through the dipstick tube. This extractor also serves as a used oil container that's drum-tight, so you can transport it to a service station to recycle the oil. This extractor costs about the same as an automobile oil change and can be used over and over, so it's a must-buy if you're going to service your own boat.
Because they're automotive engines, using filters and oil from an auto parts store is fine if you buy quality brands — and it may save you some cash over buying products made just for boat engines.
Mercruiser recommends 25W-40 engine oil.
When a boat won't start, it's usually because the battery has run down. It's easy to avoid that frustrating delay and, in the process, keep your battery working better longer. Boats are harder on batteries than cars are,
After a couple of years of boating bliss, your starting battery will need to be replaced.
When the time comes, swap the old one for a new marine starting battery.
If you plan to store your boat in the water, you need to do some things to make sure the boat can handle exposure to the weather, water, aquatic marine growth, and even wildlife, such as birds.
Unfortunately, there's one thing bottom paint can't prevent on boats that sit in the water: blisters.
Choose the right anti-fouling paint for your region. Appropriate paints differ by region because different marine life grows in different climates — and at different rates.
If you know from the day you select your boat that you plan to keep it in a slip, contract with the sales dealer to paint the bottom prior to taking delivery. Then your first paint job is behind you from the beginning!
Hoists afford complete protection against galvanic corrosion, eliminate the need for bottom paint, and minimize the risk of sinking or damage from boat wakes or wind chop.
hoist can eventually pay for itself by saving you money on the maintenance needed when you keep your boat down in the water.
It works great to keep things cool, but it's slow to make things cool in the first place. In fact, it may never make things cool if you put them in warm and try to run the fridge on your boat's battery.
Pre-chill all the drinks and food you plan to put in it. You may prefer to put only chilled food in the fridge rather than drinks. You need to get drinks more often than food, so keeping drinks
a cooler increases the efficiency of the fridge because you open it less often.
When running the fridge on 12-volt battery power, keep a close eye on the voltage indicator on the fuse panel in the cabin — if the gauge indicates voltage below 12 volts, run the motor to recharge the battery.
Open the fridge as infrequently as possible so it runs less and keeps cool with less power.
