sailboat maintenance 101, Buying a used sailboat

all right ladies and gentlemen let's talk about everyone's least favorite subject sailboat maintenance 101 today i'm going to break down some of the absolute basic maintenance procedures that you should be performing on your vessel not only daily weekly monthly quarterly as well as annually to save you from larger issues down the road [Music] all right ladies and gentlemen let's start with the hull of your vessel now cleaning the hull of your vessel is an intricate part of sailboat maintenance and all too often most sailors simply neglect it completely now depending on where you're located this will determine how often you need to actually clean your hull here in the tropics build up can start to acquire within as little as three or four days so easily a once a week cleaning down here in the tropics is required for your vessel to maintain its efficiency and prevent future issues due to build up the build up of your vessel can cause severe issues down the road for all aspects of your sail boat so the more often we clean the bottom of our hull the better shape we're going to keep our vessel in long term continuing with our whole maintenance anti-fouling your vessel now this is something that again is always neglected and it's gonna depend heavily on where you're sailing as well as how often you're sailing now if you're a full-time cruiser and you're actually clocking those nautical miles then on your vessel you should be redoing its anti-fouling every year or two at maximum however we often see people anti-fowl their vessel and boom they wait five years this is a horrible horrible mistake you should be doing it every one or two years if you're a full-time cruiser if you're not a full-time cruiser and you only use it seasonally in the northeast of the united states or somewhere similar then you can go a bit longer however do not let your anti-fowl paint go bad it's a horrible horrible idea and it's going to cause you much much larger issues down the road moving right along we're going to the deck of our vessel now your gel coat and gel coat cracks this is a common part of sailing and it's just a part of the game however the issue lies in not repairing your gel cracks over time depending on where they are located they can deepen and allow water intrusion now your basic gel coat cracks that are random happen and they are easily repairable if you don't repair them they will only get larger and eventually allow water down into the mold of your vessel now often times you will see a concentrated group of cracks they will generally run in the same direction and what this means is that you have a more severe problem it's often found at the leading edge of a cabin top where it meets the deck this can be a result of high flex area enduring heavy seas or too much load on the vessel but what happens in this area with this type of gel coat crack is it does allow water intrusion down into the cabin of your vessel as well as the bulkhead so if we look at some of the older vessels we can often see exactly where this happened and you can tell by just the area of interior deck rot on the vessel so when you're going to look at a vessel and you're thinking of purchasing one when you see large gel coat cracks all bleeding in the same area from a major part of the vessel i.e where a bulkhead would be then you've got much larger issues than you initially thought and something i always hear when people look at vessels is oh it's got some minor gel coat cracks but are they really minor or are they severe and where exactly are they so the gel coat on your vessel is incredibly important to keep in good shape don't let these cracks just continue and go their own way and destroy your vessel gel coat cracks are incredibly easy to repair and if it's coming from a high tension area such as above a bulkhead then you can think about reinforcing sections of your vessel if needed of course it all depends on the specific vessel and case scenario but you know what i'm saying you're buying what i'm selling you're picking up what i'm putting down now continuing right along with the deck of your vessel it is heavily used while cruising this is where everybody's walking and grabbing lines and doing all kinds of things and one of the largest problems to your deck is the salt and the environment so you should be washing down your deck as often as possible and absolutely daily this will prevent much larger issues down the road but how often do you see people washing their deck never nobody ever does it and it destroys your boat a simple freshwater rinse a little brush and boom you can get some of that salt off of your vessel especially if you're cruising full time your boat deck is going to be inundated with salt all of the time along with uv rays so you need to be eliminating your salt buildup as often as possible yes it should be done every single day it has to be it's going to cost you larger issues down the road now after your fresh water rinse you should be wiping down the bright work on your vessel the bright work will absolutely pit and corrode over time leading to fatigue and again much larger issues down the road you should be washing brushing and wiping down the bright work on your vessel every single day yes it sucks i know but it's something that you should absolutely be doing because if you don't you're just going to cause yourself larger issues down the road now a large bonus to fresh water rinsing your vessel and doing some brush work on a daily basis is that any time you have a leak in your vessel you're going to notice it much much sooner just think if you had just done a crossing and your vessel is sitting in a marina for a few months until your next one or whatever it is you're doing and it's getting no water you're not going to be aware of any leaks that you may have encountered on the crossing once it's dried out but if you're rinsing down your vessel every day you're going to absolutely see those leaks from the interior of the vessel and you can stop again a small issue from becoming much larger now a lot of people also have teak on their deck if you do i feel sorry for you i can do an entire probably ten part series on just taking care of your teak just know that you need to research exactly how to take care of your teak and you need to be doing that often as well but i'm not going to cover specific teak maintenance in this video but go research it there's a lot to do there and it's a pain in the rumplestiltskin onto the standing rigging of your vessel this again is another item you should be checking as often as possible you're going to want to check all the connections all the crimps all the wires everything on your standing rigging you should be inspecting visually to save yourself from problems later on down the road now if your standing rigging is older than 15 years you should just replace it it's just that simple most insurance companies are going to require you to replace it anyway and you cannot see the interior metal fatigue on your standing rigging it is not meant to last forever so 15 years is a good guideline just replace it and save yourself issues down the road now moving on to the interior of your vessel you should be checking your electrical system again at least weekly the batteries the fuses as well as all of the connections and look for any problematic areas again to save yourself issues down the road this takes little to no time just make yourself a weekly checklist and write down these items and just make a habit of it you will save yourself tens of thousands of dollars down the road onto the engine of your vessel again a weekly visual inspection is absolutely necessary you're going to want to check your oil the fuel system all the hoses all of the connections look for leaks corrosions and any other areas that might become a problem and simply repair them before they are a problem do not let this stuff go this is some of the most basic things that you need to do on a sailboat and no one does them it blows my mind this is why you see so many derelict vessels and then novice or new people to the hobby run out think they're getting a good deal when in reality all they did was just buy themselves a whole bunch of debt because the basic maintenance on the vessel was never done now if you're a budget friendly sailor like myself one of the best ways you can save money is becoming an american sailing association member i have a discount code linked below in the description with becoming an american sailing association member you do get access to dozens and dozens of other discounts and the membership lasts for an entire year it's a fantastic way to save yourself money and get on the water sooner than later now if you do need help getting on the water or narrowing down your boat purchase or you just need some information and some help consider heading on over to my website at chasinglatitudes.com over there right on the homepage you will see producer become a producer on the channel with becoming a producer you do get a one-on-one consult with me to discuss everything sailing related that you would need to as well as you do get a year's access to our members area now the members area is a fantastic place for information we have hundreds of members over there all in various stages of starting sailing some have just purchased boats some are taking asa classes and so on it is a wealth of information and it's not a public forum it's a private member's area so there's no harassment there's no bullying there's no judgment over there it's just a great place for information to help you get on the water sooner than later if you would like to you can also just send me a hundred dollars directly through paypal the link is in the description below for that as well now if that's a little bit too much for the bank account i completely understand however consider joining patreon for only ten dollars a month you do get access again to the members area which is a fantastic place for information to help you get on the water sooner than later if you did enjoy the video please leave a comment down below like share all that good stuff make it go viral i don't know do something and i will see you on the next video thank you so so much for joining foreign

Channel: Chasing Latitudes

Views: 25,095

Keywords: sailboat maintenance 101, Buying a used sailboat, buying a used sailboat, how to buy a sailboat, buying a sailboat, used sailboat market, living on a sailboat, sailboat maintenance for beginners, sailboat maintenance checklist, sailboat maintenance course, sailboat maintenance software, sailboat maintenance manual, wooden sailboat maintenance, sailboat winch maintenance, sailboat engine maintenance, steel sailboat maintenance, sailboat diesel engine maintenance

Id: HALmfmIkKhI

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2022