Winter guide
How to keep an eye on your boat in winter without new hardware.
Most boats that come to grief over winter do it quietly, in their berths, between visits. Here is what usually goes wrong, what to do before you leave her, and how to know between visits that she is fine.
What goes wrong in winter
- Shore power trips. A pontoon breaker goes in a storm or someone unplugs your lead. Chargers stop, and a boat relying on its bilge pump slowly drains its house battery.
- Lines chafe and part. Winter gales work lines against fairleads for days. One parted spring line lets the boat range and grind her topsides on the pontoon.
- Water gets in. Rain finds deck fittings and cockpit drains block with leaves. A stern gland or a seacock that was fine in summer can weep once she sits still.
- Damp and cold. Condensation, mould and, on the coldest nights, frozen water in engines and pipes left undrained.
Before you leave her
- Double up the lines and add chafe protection wherever a line touches a fairlead or the toe rail.
- Take off headsails, the sprayhood and anything else that catches wind.
- Check the cockpit drains, close the seacocks you do not need, and test the bilge pump and float switch.
- Leave a charger on shore power, and check the shore power lead and its connections for wear.
- Ask a berth neighbour or the marina office to keep an eye out, and give them your number.
Between visits, let an old phone watch
An old Android phone left aboard, plugged into shore power, already has most of the sensors you need. Velamo turns it into a hub that tells you when the shore supply drops or the boat moves out of her berth, and shows you how much she is moving and how the pressure is changing. If the hub itself goes quiet, that is an alert too.
There is nothing to buy or wire in. Setup takes about 10 minutes from a laptop, and it is free for one boat.
Written by the First Mate, Velamo's AI, and checked by the Velamo team. Velamo is an aid to keeping watch, not a guarantee.