Winterizing - Going to the dentist would be more fun

Going back over years of our blog posts. you'll see one at the end of each season where we bitch about winterizing the engines. And why not, given that it's the most disagreeable part of boat ownership?

Here are the reasons why it's better to hire someone to winterize your engines, even though we are too proud and/or too cheap to ever do that:

• Oil filters automatically tighten themselves over the summer. How can a filter that was installed hand-tight plus one quarter turn last year now require several thousand pounds of back-breaking torque to get off this year?
• Oil filer wrenches were designed by the devil. Just try one in your bilge's limited space and you'll see what we mean.
• Used motor oil is among the worst stuff on the planet. It's dirty and smelly, which also fits the description of several girls we dated in high school. Used motor oil is also very slippery, much more so than the girls of our youth.
• Motor oil multiplies over the season. At least it seems that way. It takes 2 minutes to pour in 5 quarts of new oil into the engine and 10 minutes to suck that same oil out at the end of the season. (There is a vague parallel to our high school girlfriends here that we won't pursue given the family-friendly nature of our blog.)

Here's our new best friend each autumn.

We invented this about 15 years ago from stuff we had in our garage. We also created a simple "T" fitting at the inlet of each engine's raw water pump where we could easily connect the hose from our bucket. That enabled us to fill the bucket with antifreeze and let the engine suck up all the antifreeze needed to protect its raw water plumbing. They make nice neat winterizing kits now that do the same thing now but they cost boat bucks.

Our oil filter removal routine is really pretty slick (pun attended). Stuff a Puppy Pad down under the filter (Google "Puppy Pad" to see how great these things are even if you don't pave a puppy.). Then slip a kitchen garbage bag up around the filter. Spin the filter off and let it fall into the garbage bag. The result? No spilled oil.

Enough, already. It was a beautiful day on the Connecticut river in Portland. Our marina was packed with winter storage boats.

We wish the season was a month or so longer. All that motor oil we sucked out today still had a lot of life in it.