The Long Cruise
Last-Minute Preparation for Casting Off
T
by Tom Hale
he average boat engine will be run a little over 100 hours in a typical boating season. If you are planning to take your boat down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for the winter, you will put the equivalent of six to eight normal seasons of use on your boat and systems before you get back home. Before you start, here are details to cover. 5. Learn your radio. Most VHF marine radios have the ability to monitor two or more channels. Set yours up, and learn how to operate it (see page TK). As you head south, you will have to monitor channel 16, plus the 2. Spares. Everyone has their own idea bridge traffic channel, plus channel of what spares to have aboard. Recent 13 for communicating with ships. experience with cruisers indicates that You will be glad to have channels 68 on long cruises, seawater pump failures and 72 programed into the radio so were more common than impeller you can quickly switch to a working failures. If your engine has more than frequency. Many cruisers find that 1000 engine hours, the seals are getting having a handheld radio tuned to tired and the cam is wearing out of channel 16 is helpful in monitorshape. Have a spare sea water pump on ing the hailing frequency while you hand. are on the communications channel with a bridge tender. You might just 3. The battery terminals and other high forget to go back to 16 on the ships load connections must be clean and radio. dry. Disassemble, clean, and grease the battery terminals. Check and clean as 6. The boat name should be visible necessary all other heavy load connecfrom 100 yards astern. If the name is tions such as bow thruster and anchor on the side of your boat, then make a windlass electrical connections. banner with the name on it that you can display across your stern rails. 4. Have a backup electronic charting This is no place for fancy fonts; to be system. PC navigation, iPad, or even read at a distance through binocuthe small screen of a smart phone will lars, write the name in a simple give you important redundancy in this font. system. 1. The one way run to Florida is about equivalent to one season of use. Start with an oil change even if it is not yet due; that way you do not have to address this along the way.
##The beginning of the Atlantic ICW.
##Sunset in Urbanna, VA.
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