Hi, I'm Mike Vatalaro, executive editor of BoatUS Magazine. We're here today to
open up this twin-engine 32 foot cabin cruiser and to do so we're gonna follow
our boat us spring launch checklist. The checklist takes us point by point
through the major systems of the boat and helps us get the boat on the water
safely. You can find it at BoatUS.com/magazine. So, let's get started. Take
advantage of the boat being on the hard to check fittings, zincs and running
gear. Plastic fittings near the waterline are a hazard. UV damage can make them crack
and oftentimes they'll crack on the inside where you can't see or reach. Make
sure you have a small light and you can look inside and examine for any damage.
Plastic fittings such as this should be replaced with bronze or marelon when you
have the opportunity. I'm underneath the starboard side shaft now. Before I
crawled under here, I made sure the boat was properly blocked and gave it a good
shake to make sure nothing wiggled. Now that I'm down here, I want to rotate the
shaft, make sure it turns freely; I want to check my zincs to see if any need
replacing, I'm gonna give the shaft a pretty good tug here to see if the
Cutlass bearing is showing any signs of wear; and I'm gonna check my raw water
intakes to make sure they're free of barnacles or other growth. OK, I want to
examine my seacocks now. So, I've already loosened my hose clamps, and I'm
gonna slide those back out of the way. Give that hose a good twist - pop it off. Now I want
to cycle the seacock to make sure it moves freely, and then once it's open I
want to get my light out, I want to sight through it to make sure
there's no fouling or anything else that would obstruct the water flowing to the
engine. OK, our batteries have been installed so I'm just going to go ahead
and pop the caps and make sure there's plenty of fluid in here. The one hour
lecture light that you topped off before the season begins. So I've got my light;
I'm just gonna look in each chamber and make sure I can spy electrolyte just
below the top of the cap.If any of them are low, I'm gonna replace with distilled
water, but this one looks good. OK, I'm just gonna check the
functioning of the bilge pump by manually activating it. OK, while I've
got the engine compartment open I'm just gonna give it a quick once-over, checking
belts and hoses, making sure that nothing's become cracked or brittle over
the winter. So, I'm just gonna give these all a good squeeze and make sure there's no
points at which I can feel my fingers pushing through. And then, I'm gonna check
the tension of the belts on all corners - those look pretty good. Especially paying
attention to my fuel line hose - that's the last thing we want to find out has
been damaged. So, we checked our nav lights and, lo and behold, the stern light
isn't working; but before I run off to West Marine, I'm gonna pop off this lens,
pull the bulb out, and check the connections. An old yard guy once told me,
"Things don't break over the winter, they just corrode." I'm working the wheel back
and forth to make sure the control cable is free, but if you have hydraulic
steering, you'll want to do this as well. And then, carefully inspect each
hydraulic ram to make sure there's no signs of hydraulic fluid leaking. Perhaps
the most important item on our spring launch checklist is to check your safety
gear. So, I've got my inflatable life jackets here, one of my regular life
jackets here, plus my flares. With the inflatables, I'm gonna open them up, go and find
my cylinder, and check that they show green, meaning they're ready to go. Put that back
together neatly. On my regular life jacket you can see that I've added
reflective tape and a strobe light, so I just want to try to go ahead and
activate that strobe. And as you can see, my batteries are dead, so I need to put
AA's on my shopping list. My flare box - I want to go through here and check
the dates on every flare. This one expired last season, so now I've got to
take it out, or mark it as expired and put it out of
immediate reach. As you can see, I've stored many expired players. I also have
in the top of the tray my ones that are still good. This one says June of 2013. Well,
we've got a good start on our pre-season checklist on this cabin cruiser. If
you're a boater that owns a sterndrive boat or sailboat, or if there's special
sections of the checklist that apply to you, see more of those at BoatUS.com/magazine.
We figured out the items we need to address before we can launch
this boat, but otherwise we're good to go. So, I'll see you out there on the water.
Have a great season.