First winter with new-to-us boat


P

potentialowner

Member
Greetings, I'm sure this has been done to death, and I've been doing some research, however I wanted to see if anyone had winterization thoughts given our particulars. We have a 34PC that will remain in the water, with gas 8.1s. We do have a bilge / engine room heater, and typical equipment like A/C, generator etc. We don't get TOO many below freezing days up this way, but I wanted to take a pulse and see if people had any suggestions for winterizing our boat up here in the PNW. We probably won't be taking it out for a few months until early spring. I wasn't sure if I needed to take particular care with the fresh water systems onboard, as well ad fuel stabilizer etc.

Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

Chers!
 
Depends on what you want to do with the boat. Do you just want to leave it in the water till spring or will you overnight on it? I would prefer to winterize the boat and be safe. Ensure that your seacocks work properly and completely seal off any water.
Please remember that electrical is the main cause of electrical fires due to heaters, corroded connections on the shore power so check everything and be sure it will work flawlessly.
 
I'm really hesitant to leave any kind of heater running onboard while we're not there. The boat is only about 4 minutes from the house, but fires can happen fast and the boat might as well be on the moon if something went wrong. I'm thinking about just trying to keep things from freezing over and causing any kind of damage. We probably won't be staying overnight on the boat until springtime, but we'll be visiting the boat at least weekly just to poke around and make sure things are ok. My plan was to add fuel stabilizer and drain the freshwater tank as a minimum. I've hear of people putting some kind of antifreeze down all the drains, but I'm not sure if there are spacial kinds for potable water tanks like that.

I've been trying to find diagrams for the locations of the seacocks on this particular boat, but I haven't located them yet. I want to add the seacocks and strainers to my inspection list. I ASSume it's an open cooling system, though I'm still learning these systems so it would be nice to verify fully.
 
Since you will not be using the boat, I would winterize all systems including the engines. Seacocks for the engines and a/c are located near the strainers. You may want to have it professionally winterized the first year to teach you how it's done properly.
 
I like that idea of having it professionally done the first time, I think that's the plan I'll take. I appreciate all the insights on this one!
 
Agree professional first time
I drain everything, then use air pressure to blow out all water and AC lines and I'm good
 
I'm curious about getting antifreeze into the water lines on a 34pc. There is the tank fill line in the stern, and the city water, but I believe that both of these will also try to fill the water tank, and the water heater. How are people getting AF into the lines, bypassing the tanks. I'm sure I must be missing something.
 
potentialowner said:
I'm curious about getting antifreeze into the water lines on a 34pc. There is the tank fill line in the stern, and the city water, but I believe that both of these will also try to fill the water tank, and the water heater. How are people getting AF into the lines, bypassing the tanks. I'm sure I must be missing something.
Click to expand...

Install bypass hose and fittings on the HW tank, then connect the AF hose just before the intake of the 12V water pump.
 
AllDodge said:
Install bypass hose and fittings on the HW tank, then connect the AF hose just before the intake of the 12V water pump.
Click to expand...

This! ^^
On my 34 PC rather than pull out the fridge to access the pump, I take the pump suction line off the tank and suck up the antifreeze at that point. Prior to adding AF I blow out the system using an air compressor, I figure 1 extra step can save me quite a bit of work, down the road. I've been doing this for years, and haven't had a problem.
 
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