Sunday, May 15, 2016

Starting the engines after winter storage

On May 13, after a busy work week, we took some time on Friday to start the engines on our old boat for the first time this season. Luckily, there were no issues. The old girls (our engines) started right up after they each got a few tablespoons of gas poured into their carbs. Nice to hear them idle with lots of water coming out of their exhaust pipes.

We now have 50 gallons of fresh water in our water tank and all the faucets and the fresh water pump work just as they did last fall. We'll pump most of that water overboard before we leave or while underway. No sense hauling all that extra weight for nothing.

We're glad that we have a reliable way to winterize the engines and our water system, despite many of the postings on internet forums to the contrary. No compressed air or special fittings needed, just common sense.



Once we got the engines going and the batteries charged, we shut things down and checked the fluids in the transmissions and the v-drives. The port transmission took about half a cup of fluid but everything else was where it was supposed to be.

On Saturday, it was time to bring lots of our stuff back to the boat. That included bedding, linens, etc. It's all still packed in those vacuum bags we love so much. Now someone needs to unpack it all and put everything away. Can you guess who we hope that will be?

There is more to do here than in previous years because this winter we removed just about everything in order to paint and rewire.

We must have made a dozen trips from the car to the boat. No dock carts here at Portland Riverside,  unfortunately.

On Sunday, we brought down a few more things, checked the electronics on the bridge and made a very half-hearted attempt to wash the front of the boat. We finally gave up because it was cold and the wind on the river was gusting to about 25 mph. We rarely see whitecaps on the river but we did today.

The weather forecast for the next couple of days is lousy but if  we get a good day, we'll make the run to Norwich and begin setting up Frances' summer home.

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