Preparing Your Inflatable Boat for Winter

Winter can easily be the most dangerous month for your inflatable boat. If your boat is not ready for hibernation, the winter weather may cause severe damage (cracks, corrosion, etc.). If you think that once the spring blossoms, you can only get some professional help, please think again-you are looking for a boatman when you are busiest.

 

Therefore, before being caught by the cold grip in the fall, any problems and maintenance required by the dealer should be resolved in the fall. This is what you need to do. This article mainly introduces how to prepare your treasured inflatable boat for winter.

 

 

1. The Benefits of Preparing Your Inflatable Boat for Winter

Provide protection from the harsh elements of winter.

Properly maintained equipment will save you money.

Get you boating quicker in the spring.

 

 

2. How to Prepare Your Inflatable Boat for Winter

Winterizing is not only about shaking certain fuel stabilizers, draining the engine and adding antifreeze. Think of this as an orderly process from bow to beam. Due to the difference between the boat and the engine, please check the antifreeze/storage section of the user manual first. Fiberglass can withstand the damage of summer sun and salt water, so light snow should be a problem, right? That’s wrong. Ice accretion can split open hatch and window tracks, causing leaks. Therefore, external storage requires proper ship cover.

 

You will also need to inspect the hull for stress cracks and gel coat blisters. Stress cracks may indicate structural damage, and any serious problems should be inspected by professionals. Drills with blisters should be pierced, drained, dried and repaired with epoxy-based fillers made for this purpose. If your hull is made of aluminum, use a rubber hammer to slowly beat the drum to make a dent.

 

Barnacles and any other unwelcome guests put a sticker on the bottom of your favorable inflatable boat, and their free-riding privileges should be terminated by scraping and then sanding the residue. A good high-pressure cleaning is done to remove dirt and terrible sea scum.

 

Winter air can be humid or dry, and both conditions can bring grief to vinyl interiors. Vinyl cleaners and protectants can prevent your vinyl from drying out and cracking. More insidious is moisture that opens the door to mildew. The solution here is to vent your boat cover for good airflow to minimize trapped moisture.

 

Moisture likes to corrode your on-board electronics and electrical system. If your wiring is of the non-marinized variety, it's especially prone to corrosion that can cause shorts, blown fuses, etc. Remove any electronics that you can, and let them winter in a kinder environment. Then, spray all exposed electrical connections with a moisture-displacing lubricant. Now is also the time for a thorough cleaning of all brightwork, vacuuming/washing of the carpets and deck, and a general overall grime-busting expedition.

 

The above are the basic steps of preparing your inflatable boat for winter, in the next article we will introduce how to winterize your boat systems.

 

You not only have to prepare your inflatable boat for winter, you also need to prepare your other inflatable products for winter, such as inflatable garden toys, inflatable toy car, inflatable toys jet ski, inflatable toy plane, etc.

 

Do you want to learn more about winterizing methods for backyard inflatable toys? Please contact us, we can provide you with professional inflatable equipment winterizing advice.