How to Winterize Your Boat for Boat Storage

With the winter here, it’s absolutely essential that you find boat storage before it gets any closer. Without properly winterizing your boat, you may find that it’s dirty, infested with pests, or even meaningfully damaged. Suffice it to say, proper winterization and boat storage is essential to keep your watercraft in working order.

That said, you may be wondering what winterizing your boat entails. After all, you’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and money into your watercraft—it’s important that it gets done right. With that in mind, we decided to take this month’s blog post to walk you through winterizing your boat for boat storage. While this isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive guide, we hope this helps you get your foot in the door.

5 Steps for Winterizing Your Boat

All said and done, there are five steps for winterizing your boat. Below, we’ll walk through those steps, providing a brief explanation of what they are and how to do them.

1. Replace Outboard Oil. Even if you changed your oil recently, we highly recommend doing it again. If any water got into your oil (or other areas of your outboard), then it will freeze in the winter, which can cause serious damage. Changing the oil is also essential because it prevents acid build-up in the powerhead while it’s sitting all season.

2. Drain the Other Systems. Just like with your outboard, your other systems can retain water even after you place them in storage. This is why it’s essential to drain all systems of any excess water. If you don’t remove all the water, then who knows what damage it’ll cause when it freezes.

3. Stabilize Your Fuel. Over time, gasoline and ethanol tend to degrade. This is because gas and ethanol have volatile hydrocarbons in them, which evaporate in storage and lead to a chemical imbalance. As a result, gasoline can actually lower in octane and the water in ethanol can begin to freeze—both are bad outcomes for your boat.
4. Cover Your Boat. Hopefully this one is something of a no-brainer. Covering your boat is essential to keep out the elements, but also to keep out pests. We recommend using either a custom-fitted cover (many boats come with these already) or getting your boat shrink-wrapped.

5. Choose Boat Storage. Finally, it’s time to choose where to store your boat. Here at Kooper’s Marine, our professionals are happy to store and carefully watch your boat throughout the winter.

Boat Storage at Kooper’s Marine

Are you looking to store your boat for the winter but want to make sure it’s being carefully watched? If so, then we here at Kooper’s Marine are happy to offer you the boat storage you need. For more information on our availability, click here to contact us today!