Leaving your boat in the water.

This is my first post, but I have been reading the board for a while. I rent a marina slip at Claytor lake in southwest Va. It is really cool to get off work and be on the water in 15 minutes. I am ready to buy a wake boat and want to know the cons of leaving it in the water during boating season.

Gel-coat could bubble. Some people leave it in the water some don't. Personally I would never do it again. It only took 3 months, on a brand new boat, of leaving it in the water to make the gel-coat blister. Not fun at all. I would spend the extra money to have a lift installed. Just knowing your boat is out of the water and keeping dry is very satisfying.

our last boat was kept on a left except one corner of the boat touched the water and the gel-bubbled....

Thanks guys. I will check with the marina to see if they will allow a lift to be intstalled. We are on the water basically everyday that the weather is good, except for Wednesdays, and Sunday mornings for church, so it would be a real pain to pull back and forth all the time although we only live about 5 minutes from the water.

I've kept all my boats on the lake & never had the gel coat problem. I've never seen what the criteria is for what it takes for the gel coat to bubble. I do pull the boat every 2 or 3 weeks & clean it up. 3 months & it would be a mess.

Having a lift is nice too.... especially if the weather kicks up, or on a busy Saturday, your baby is high & dry.

There was a guy on one of these forums a while back who had the bubbling gel coat problem on his boat. He never kept it on the water at all. The only place the gel coat bubbled up was where the bunks rested on the hull. So he never saw the problem till it was pretty bad. Tough to get around that though.

I've left my boats on the water for a couple of months straight for many years. Never a problem even where we had gouges through the gel.
It is, afterall, a boat.

Airjunky, where are you located at, and how long is your season?

As far as the weather, very rarely do we have it bad enough to make the water rough. Claytor is a small 4000 acre lake that is rarely busy, and my slip is deep into the marina so I never have rough water at my slip.

our 1988 Doral bowrider has always been in the water for 4 months straight every summer and we have not had 1 issue with the gel coat.

Maybe they don't make em like they used to.

I also have a 95 Ski Ray I bought this year and it has been in 3 months now with no issues.

Hey Bobby, I'm on a 700 acre lake in eastern WA & keep my Vride tied to a dock with 17 boat slips. Our season is probably 6 or 7 months long, and can easily be pushed to 9.

Hot, sunny weekends typically attract lots of people to the lake & it can get pretty chopped up. We usually will ride early & bag it by noon or so.

Waxing your hull seems to keep the scum off it for quite a while. I use a $10 Harbor Freight hand buffer & some 3M Fiberglass Restorer..... takes maybe an hour.

Most hull cleaners will clean them without so much scrubbing. Starbrite's will eat it right off.

I don't have the problem unless I leave the boat in the lake for more than a month or so.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on July 30, 2008)

I second not ever leaving my boat in the water for the season again. i had the same problem as everyone else. Gel Coat Bubbles. Also it leaves a nasty lake line that isn't any fun scrubbing off, and i pulled my boat out once every 2 to 4 weeks depending on how busy i was. OK it was closer to ever 3 to 5 weeks but our season is pretty much end of March to end of Dec.

I can not profess to know all the variables that can make a boat blister or not but can tell you that some fiberglass boats sit in the water for months and years and never a problem, others a couple of months and the damage is there. From what I have read, the blistering is a defect in the gel coat process and you can find some good info searching on the net. Some boat manufacturers void there 'lifetime' warranty if you keep your boat in the water when not in use - so not much of a warranty IMO. I can say that the cheapest I/O boats I have owned stayed in the water pretty much all season without a problem, but my more expensive inboard had some blistering from the previous owner. I guess sometimes you do not always get what you pay for, at least when it comes to hull integrity. I now have a lift and think the lift is well worth the money. Also depending on the chemical composition and general cleanliness of the lake, you can get some near permanent stains in your gel coat, but again this highly variable between boats. Last thing to consider is your shaft packing, battery, and bilge pump. Unless you have a dripless packing, you will accumulate water over time which is no problem as long as your battery stays charged and the automatic bilge works, but a failure in any of these components and you may have a sunk boat.

Bottom line is that you will be taking a chance leaving it docked in the water. Might want to see if others that have the same make and year as yours have had any problems in your lake.

How many people leave thier boat in the water for weekend & weekend trips? I have done this when we go houseboating & camping with no issues.

I have kept all of mine in the water. 84 centurion - 4 years

00 - launch 3 years

06 vlx 2 years

Not one problem, just got do a wax and cut polish once or twice a year on the bottom.

My 89 has sat in the water year round for 3 years and now from April to Nov the past 2 years. I haven't noticed any blisters.

1992 ProStar 205
2001 Four Winns
1988 Chapparel
1990 BaySlimer
1985 Sear Ray

Those are the boats we've gone through in the past. All of the above have been left in the water for 5 months out of the year. Never had a single issue with gel coat blistering.

If you get a new/expensive boat. I would think a lift w/canopy would almost pay for itself in resale value in the long term. I know mine did.

A lot of good answers and suggestions. I will talk to the marina about a lift, but it is a state park so I doubt they will allow it. If they don't allow it, I am not sure what I will do. I really hate to give up the slip, so I may just be dedicated to cleaning it often. As much as we are on the water, taking it out and cleaning it would be a chance to pull it a mile up the road and save $.90 a gallon on gas. That adds up to a lot of money over 5 or 6 months. Thanks for all the input. I read several different forums about various subjects, and this by far the best one. You guys have a good thing going.

There is a very big chance i could be wrong but I do not think cleaning it will have anything to do with preventing gel coat bubbles as they come from the boat being in the water not from the dirt. Also i think water temp has a lot to do with it so if your body of water does not get nasty hot that may help too.

72 degrees in May
78-82 in June
On Tuesday it was 87. That was the highest that I had seen in 6 or 7 years.

Frankly I don't think it has anything to do with cleaning a little dirt off the bottom of a boat. It's the scum or whatever the live plant like, green or brown mossy stuff is that grows on boats, docks, pilings, etc. I imagine cleaning that off & waxing the hull and allowing it to dry out from time to time has a lot more to do with why some do it & others don't.

Temparature or water content might have something to do with it too.

Do a google search on osmosis blisters and read some of the material that will come-up. Blisters are a major problem for large boats that must stay in the water. The biggest issue is that it isn't possible to know in advance if it will happen to your boat.

Your boat is always going to have some water in the bilge so it's going to be wet whether it's on a lift or not so I doubt getting the hull wet causes blisters. I still think blisters are caused by improperly mixed resins but that's JMO and, like other things, everyone has one.