Keeping a boat in the water year round or pulling it out

Are you speaking from experience? If so yours is a lot different from mine........I just hauled my boat for a week after being in the water for a year - removed the drives had them pressure tested - had all bellows, gimbles, allignments checked, cleaned them and re-painted with trilux-33 - No problems and my drives are also 100% corrosion free (and they are not sea core) Durring that year I had a diver clean the bottom and replace the zincs once. Just like anything common sense and careful maintenance is key -
I've never had corrosion on either my regular BIIIs or SeaCore BIIIs, but my prop and ram anodes will last about 4 months before they are 50% depleted. I replace those in August and again when the boat is pulled in October.
I use antifouling paint on my outdrives, which lasts about 4 months. If I don't hand scrape my outdrives and props every 2-3 weeks after August, I have barnacle growth.

Do you have any pictures of the drives when the boat was pulled after a year in the water?

With this type of maintenance the drives stay relatively clean and completely corrosion free. It would be impossible to do this type of maintenance between November and May up here due to the weather and temperature. So, that would be 7 months without an anode change and for growth to take hold.

There are several other outdrives in my marina that receive no maintenance during the season. A few of them do not have any recognizable parts due to the growth. I can only imagine what kind of corrosion must be under the growth. My dock neighbor had twin BIII drives and kept his boat in the water the same duration as me last season, but without any maintenance of the drives. At the end of the season his drives were completely covered with barnacles an inch thick in some areas. There was no part of the drives that revealed any of the black paint. Mine had patches of growth in areas that I could not reach with the spatula from the dock.

The service department at my SR dealer advised me against using Trilux 33 on the outdrives due to information they received at a SR meeting. It is thought that the metal content of Trilux 33 would cause corrosion. I don't know if they have evidence or are speculating. They used another product on my drives, but it was a spray-on thin coating, that gets me through only 4 months.
 
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Use my boat all year and have never winterized. NO detrimental affect here at all.
My first 2 years I had a 270 with the TRS outdrive and 454....but again....no problems with keeping it in the water.....

Do you use a heater? Surely you all get freezing temps over there?
 
I've never had corrosion on either my regular BIIIs or SeaCore BIIIs, but my prop and ram anodes will last about 4 months before they are 50% depleted. I replace those in August and again when the boat is pulled in October.
I use antifouling paint on my outdrives, which lasts about 4 months. If I don't hand scrape my outdrives and props every 2-3 weeks after August, I have barnacle growth.

Do you have any pictures of the drives when the boat was pulled after a year in the water?

With this type of maintenance the drives stay relatively clean and completely corrosion free. It would be impossible to do this type of maintenance between November and May up here due to the weather and temperature. So, that would be 7 months without an anode change and for growth to take hold.

There are several other outdrives in my marina that receive no maintenance during the season. A few of them do not have any recognizable parts due to the growth. I can only imagine what kind of corrosion must be under the growth. My dock neighbor had twin BIII drives and kept his boat in the water the same duration as me last season, but without any maintenance of the drives. At the end of the season his drives were completely covered with barnacles an inch thick in some areas. There was no part of the drives that revealed any of the black paint. Mine had patches of growth in areas that I could not reach with the spatula from the dock.

The service department at my SR dealer advised me against using Trilux 33 on the outdrives due to information they received at a SR meeting. It is thought that the metal content of Trilux 33 would cause corrosion. I don't know if they have evidence or are speculating. They used another product on my drives, but it was a spray-on thin coating, that gets me through only 4 months.


One of the secrets to not getting any growth on the outdrives during the winter months (or any other month) is to run your boat every week or two. Combine this with good ole Trilux 33 (use the paint-on kind. not the spray-on) and you won't have any growth. Been using this combo for 10 years now and never had any real growth on the drives. Just the occasional barnacle and a coating of slime.
 
There is a difference between boat kept in fresh water and boats kept in salt water. I would think you could keep a OB boat in fresh water for a year without much of a problem. I can assure you that if you try it at my marina, you will have a problem. I see a trend in this string where everyone not having a problem are in fresh water or brackish water. I always start my engines every week and run the boat and I still get barnacles on the drives unless I scrape. The paint helps a bit, but it has mostly washed off from use. Maybe the OP should get local information because the situation does vary by location.
 
I keep my boat in the mid-bay and this is our first year with this boat. Several boaters leave their boats in year-round with bubblers around here. We're thinking about trying it since the water rarely freezes.
 
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Thanks for all the chatter. This has been a very good post. I just spoke with our Fleet Captain at our club. He leaves is boat in every year all year long. He does pull it for a quick look at the bottom and to check things over. I think he said he does that twice a year. He has never had an issue with the bottom, the shafts or really anything. He said he does get some barnacles but not a lot. Even if he does - the trade off is that he uses his boat all winter. He said he is down there at least 4 times a week and they run the boat on the weekend - weather permitting.
He also said he uses a propane infra red heaters in the cabin. He keeps the cabin around 48 degrees when he is not there. He doesn't winterize it but said I could winterize the water system if I wanted. But he doesn't.
So having said all of that - I am leaning or listing to leaving it in.
 
I keep my boat in the mid-bay and this is our first year with this boat. Several boaters leave their boats in year-round with bubblers around here. We're thinking about trying it since the water rarely freezes.

CW: We are keeping ours in the water this year. I'll pull it in the spring, clean, polish and checking everything I can and back in it goes.
Keep me posted how you do.
 
Here's what your outdrive will look like at my marina if you don't use the boat for a season.

IMG00070-20100918-1321.jpg
 
Do you use a heater? Surely you all get freezing temps over there?

KRB64.......I put a explosion proof drop light in the bilge for the very cold days.....other than that....nothing else is done....to date we have only had a light skim of ice on the water around the marina.....in my humble opinion, unless the water freezes around me.....the bilge area will be the same temp as the water I am sitting in....our freezing temps don't last more than a couple of days, and never cold enough to freeze the creek as it is moving water.....
 

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