Can You Use a Small Boat All Year Round?
Every October, most of the Pilots on swing moorings come out of the water. Very few of those owners have decided they are finished for the year. For most of them the insurance on the mooring has made the decision, and the lift-out has simply become the routine that follows.
The owners who stay in tend to be on marina berths. That is a pattern rather than a hard rule, but it has held for a long time, and it means a good part of every winter goes unused by people who would happily be out in it.
So can you use a small boat all year round? Yes. With a displacement hull, a cuddy to tuck under and an inboard diesel that is run properly, winter use is realistic. What it asks for is a different routine, and most of that routine happens while you are ashore.
The biggest mistake is not being there
The thing most owners get wrong about winter is not technical. It is taking the boat out of the water in the first place and missing the days that make winter worth having.
In December, January and February there are windows between the weather systems when you get cold, crisp, still days. The light is low and clear, the sea is flat and there is hardly another boat about. There is absolutely nothing better than being out on a day like that with a flask of coffee, or whatever else you prefer to keep in a flask.
Those days rarely arrive with much notice. That is why they are lost to a boat sitting in a yard. By the time the forecast shows a good window, the window is usually gone before a lift-in could be arranged.
What a winter trip actually looks like
Winter trips are planned around the turning point, not the destination. At displacement speeds every hour out is an hour back, and in December the useful light is gone by mid-afternoon. The best winter trips are short ones, timed so the return leg is in good light.
Cold is what people worry about most, and it is the easiest part to manage. Wrap up properly, more than feels necessary on the pontoon, and use the cuddy. Tucked in under it, out of the wind and low down in a deep cockpit, a crisp January morning is far more comfortable than it looks from the shore.
What changes more than the temperature is the margin. In summer the weather is generally calmer and the systems are more settled, so they do not move through as quickly. The days are long and there is time to spare. A mistake usually has room to be put right. In winter that room shrinks. The systems come through faster, the light goes earlier and there are fewer boats about to lend a hand. Go out a little less prepared for the sea, the weather or the cold, let alone the rain, and everything becomes harder at once.
After years of winter callouts, that is the difference I notice most between a July trip and a January one: the same small problem has less room around it. How much a small displacement hull will take, and how to judge the day, is covered in Is a Small Motor Boat Big Enough for Coastal Waters?
If it stays in, the work is between trips
Keeping a boat afloat through winter is not hard, but nearly all of it happens when nobody is aboard. Three things catch owners out.
The cockpit is not self-draining. The cockpit drains to the bilge by design, which is what allows it to sit lower and deeper with a better centre of gravity. In summer that barely registers. In winter, weeks of rain go straight into the bilge. The manual pump that comes as standard only works when someone is there to use it, so a boat left in over winter needs checking regularly, and an automatic electric bilge pump is sensible as a backup. More on the pump and the rest of the routine is in What Does Plymouth Pilot Maintenance Actually Look Like?
When I was a young lad working in a marina, one of my jobs was going round pumping boats out after heavy rain. I lost count of the number I found full of water. It was rarely anything more complicated than a cover that had not been fitted properly, or one that had blown off in the wind, on a boat whose owner had not been down for a while. A cover keeps the rain out only while it stays on, and the only way to know it has stayed on is to go and look.
Batteries go flat when they sit. Long spells without use drain a battery, and a flat battery on the one good day of the month turns a trip into a job. Some owners have fitted a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up between visits. It matters twice over when an automatic bilge pump is fitted, because that pump is likely running from the same battery.
An engine that is used does not need winterising, but used means more than started. The rule most engineers work to is a proper run every two to three weeks: twenty to thirty minutes under load, long enough to reach full operating temperature. Under load is best done underway, not tied up to the pontoon. Ten minutes ticking over in neutral does very little, and it can do more harm than good. The engine never gets properly hot, so moisture condenses inside instead of burning off and finds its way into the oil. On a swing mooring, running in gear to put load on it is not the answer either, because it strains the mooring and puts the pennant near the propeller.
The simplest way to give a diesel what it needs in winter is to go boating. An owner who is out every fortnight is looking after the engine without trying. One who is not is better off winterising it and letting it rest. The simplicity of a small inboard diesel is part of what makes this manageable, as covered in Why Most Plymouth Pilots Use Inboard Diesel Engines.
What a fortnightly visit looks like
The engine run and the checks fall on the same fortnight, so one visit covers both. The only time it needs to be sooner is after heavy rain or a gale.
- Bilge. How much water is there, and has the automatic pump been running? Lifting the float switch by hand shows whether it still works.
- Battery. Check the charge. If there is a solar panel, check the controller is showing charge.
- Cover. Still on, properly fitted, not flogging and not holding a pool of rainwater.
- Mooring. Pennant, lines and fairleads for chafe, especially after a blow.
- Stern gland. Dry, or no more than a slow drip.
- Inside the cuddy. Damp and mildew. Cushions and other upholstery are better at home over winter.
- Engine. Twenty to thirty minutes under load, ideally underway, with cooling water coming out of the exhaust.
Stay in or lift out
Staying in works when you can get to the boat every couple of weeks, and after every heavy blow or wet spell. That is the honest line. If the boat is a long drive away, or life will not allow a fortnightly visit, lifting out is the better choice. A boat that cannot be checked is safer ashore than afloat and forgotten.
A swing mooring does not have to mean a lift-out, though. Many policies carry a winter removal condition, usually running from November to the end of March, because insurers see swing moorings as a higher winter risk. Some will cover a sheltered mooring through a specialist broker, often with a higher excess over winter. The other route is a winter berth. Many marinas sell packages covering roughly November to March, aimed at owners who spend the summer on a mooring. The insurer is satisfied, the season carries on and the boat is a short walk away when it needs checking. The wider choice between mooring, berth and dry storage is covered in How Easy Is It to Moor, Launch and Store a Plymouth Pilot?
On bilge keels a Pilot sits level on a hard or against a wall at low water. Some owners use that for a scrub and a look at the anodes without booking a lift. Many still haul out for the winter, though, for better long-term security and easier access to work on her.
Staying in year after year does have a longer-term side. Osmosis is not uncommon on older boats kept afloat without drying out over winter, which is worth knowing if the plan is to stay in for the long run. What Is the Lifespan of a Fibreglass Boat? goes into what that means for the hull.
Ready when the day comes
A small boat can be used all year round. The more useful question is whether it will be ready when a good winter day turns up.
Most owners who lose the winter do not lose it to the weather. They lose it to a full bilge, a flat battery or a boat that has already been lifted out.
A still January morning on the water does not come with much warning, and it does not wait.