Boat exterior maintenance

Before hauling out your boat for the first time, check the equipment that the marina or boat yard will use.

Most marinas have a travel-lift or crane that will lift your boat out of the water and place it on a cradle or on the ground where it will need to be chocked up.

Find out what lines and fenders you need and whether you need a ladder to get up and down to work on your boat. Thorough preparation will take the anxiety out of hauling.

Most boatyards have a high-pressure water spray that can be used to clean off the bottom immediately your boat is out of the water. If you leave the accumulated marine growth to harden, it will take a lot of effort to remove it, and you may damage the underlying paint layer, which will then require touching up before you can recoat.

Keeping your bottom clean

Every month or so during the year, don a mask and flippers and give your hull a wipe-down underwater (or hire someone to do this for you).

This prevents slime from building up, keeps the bottom smooth and will make your yearly maintenance that much easier.

There is nothing worse than slipping a boat which has never been wiped over and comes out of the covered in barnacles and weeds.

Getting such a boat clean will require a good rub of sandpaper to get it smooth and will probably entail removing paint which will then have to be touched up before any antifouling can be applied.

Yacht antifouling

Antifouling paint keeps marine growth off the bottom of your boat and it needs to be applied wherever you sail. These paints vary from area to area to deal with different fouling characteristics, so choose one that is appropriate for the waters you will sail in.

Many antifouling paints are ablative, that is, th face constantly dissolves or flakes away, leaving fresh paint exposed. Pick the very best antifouling th can buy for cruising, and avoid a racing antifouling which is expensive and may have a shorter life.

Antifouling paints used to contain poisons but, with the concentration of small craft in marinas, it was discovered that these substances were adversely affecting the environment and there are now strict controls over the manufacture of these paints.

Antifouling should last for about a year, but if your boat is hauled out of the water for the winter, the paint will only have to last for the summer.