how to moor my boat for the night

will be camping for a week and plan on leaving my boat in the water. I'm new to inboard boats, anything I have to worry about keeping it in the water overnight. How much water do you think will leak in through the shaft seal, if any? Also, when I moor it, should I point the nose out toward the lake or toward shore, or doesn't it matter? I would take it out, but the landing is so shallow and rocky. You have to idle about a quarter mile in and out to get to the safer deep water. Thanks for any advice.

bow toward open water
auto pump on
it shouldn't leak more than a fully charged batt could pump out and still start the boat. I wouldn't chance it first time. If you have several batts, disconnect all but one.

.edit.
make sure you have something stretchy on your anchor line

(Message edited by denverd1 on June 27, 2007)

Depending on the water quality, be prepared to have a bunch of gunk (algae) growth below the waterline.

You might want to have the Snowbowl ready to go to clean the bottom when you get it out of the water.

you can wait awhile on the snobol, it will still work a week later just as good. I face this multiple times a summer at the cabin and I leave the boat in for 10 days at a time

Omg.. do all of you guys only trailer your boat or something.
Our boat is in the water for about half a year.
Once in a while you pull it out of the water. You clean hull of the boat with hydrochloric and your set for another month or two.

(Message edited by hmurray on June 27, 2007)

Due your fine with one battery. I leave mine in the water for a week with out checking on it and it hasn't sunk yet.

Make sure you got a good coat of wax on the hull.
Your going to put it to bed late at night and get up and go early in the morning. If it takes on that much water to sink it you'll know you have problems before you put it to bed.

I'm going to send you a word document on how to tie up a boat.

Let me know if you have any questions that I can answer.

I leave my boat in the water all summer long it will be fine. Like the other dude said.. the auto bilge will do fine. It won't drain your battery that much. I just pulled my boat after being in the water for the last month and there was no scumb line what so ever.

Dave-The scum thing all depends on your lake. If i leave my boat in the water for more than a weekend its got scum on it from the algae.

The other thing that I do when anchoring my boat for the night is i put one anchor off the bow, and another off of the stern so that my boat wont swing and pull the anchor out of being set. Then i tie a fender to each anchor line and clip the two anchor lines together when we go out so when i come back my anchor set up is ready for me

(Message edited by wakeboardin2k4 on June 27, 2007)

It is a good idea to have the bilge pump on "auto" at ALL times.

Lakes typically have a fairly constant, or at least slowly changing water level. If you are on a river, or worse in tidal waters you need to be sure that rising water doesn't pull the anchor free or falling water leaving your boat on the bottom.

The avantage of anchoring stern out is that it gets the prop and rudder into deeper water. If there is any possibility of bike wakes coming by, or even a wind chop you need to have enough water under the prop so that it doesn't ever touch the bottom. On the other hand, really big wakes/waves could crash over the stern and swamp the boat, so sometimes bow out is the best approach.

Rod

we always do bow out because of like rod said, the fear of waves crashing over the stern and swamping the boat.

It's a crystal clear 500 acre lake. Will not have to worry about scum. Have had my 16 foot aluminum boat in that lake multiple times for 7-10 days without scum. My father in law and uncle in law also keep their I/O's in there for the same amount of time without problems. It's the lakes and rivers near me in Central WI where I have to deal with the scum! I am not worried about it getting swamped either. I will have a waterproof cover that extends all the way over the swim deck and 95% of the time the lake is like glass at night.
Edit: One more thing, the auto bilge doesn't seem to work on my boat, not sure why? Even with the bilge area bone dry the bilge runs when it is on Auto? I'm not sure how the auto thing is suppose to work. The bilge pump in there right now just looks like a standard mayfair cartridge pump with two wires running to it? Funny thing is when I run the pump on manual, it runs faster/louder than when it is on auto too? You can visually see the differene in how fast the water gets pumped out when switching between manual and auto.

(Message edited by chaser on June 27, 2007)