Spring Cleaning
 

Finally with some nice weather I couldn't resist spending a day getting the boat ready for the season. Focused mainly on the outside of the boat and will spend a day (or 2) getting the interior ready next week.
Decided to acid wash both drives and then polish up the stainless steel (attached a before pic which shows how badly hard water and grime had built up). Also washed and buffed in a fresh coat of wax on the hull.
Can't wait to put her back in the water in 2 weeks.

It's finally that time........looks Nice

Looks nice. One thing about living where you can't use your boat but 3~4 months is one of my years here is like 4 of your years. I can't imagine paying for a boat that I can only use 3 months per year...but that's me.

I'm sure we would all love to live somewhere where year round boating is a possibility. However, here at Lake of the Ozarks boating season has become a April through October season (given that depending how late into October you go it gets a little chilly on the water). And in fact April, May, September, and October are some of the best months to be in the water...no crowds and cruiser wakes everywhere like June-Aug on the weekends. My favorite days on the water last year were in October boating around the lake with all the fall colors in full effect and 60 degree weather.

I read somewhere that your area has a "Micro Climate" that keeps it several degrees warmer in the winter than that area as a whole...any truth to that?

Southern Missouri is typically a little warmer as a whole. Not quite sure about the "micro climate" though. Very few performance or pleasure boaters do any boating in the actual winter months (almost all boating during the winter months is by fishermen in bass boats).
I can say that it was 65 degrees yesterday and I was out working in a tee-shirt and shorts (very comfortable) and watched at least 200-250 performance/pleasure boats go by while I was cleaning the boat. Typically April 1st many boaters will "summerize" their boats and boat traffic constantly pics up throughout the month with almost everyone rearing to go early to middle May.
Last October it was warm enough to boat with just a light jacket and with all the leaves changing on the lake it was an AMAZING couple weeks worth of boating.

My wife is from NW Alabama near Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River. Pickwick Reservoir and Pier 57 are about 20 miles down river from there. We have been at our families homes on the river during the holidays and been out on my brother in law's 382 Fastech on Christmas Eve enjoying the decorated homes in 25 deg weather. I was surprised to see a bunch of boats out of Pier 57 running the river that time of year. With closed cooling and a boathouse he doesn't do anything special to his...pulls it in hoists it out of the water and all is well. I suspect he is the exception to the rule.

Try living in Seattle! Our boating season is really short! July-September and even then we only average 75 degrees! Last weekend was nice...68 degrees and sunny. This weekend its 38 degrees and raining. Im jealous of anyone who lives in Florida!

This video was taken in June a few years ago but thats what June looks like here every year (the weather people call it "Juneuary"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnTsfjUIeas

DANG!!! That's horrible. I def won't be complaining about our 6-7 month boating season anymore. You guys up there are die-hards to put up with such bad and quickly changing conditions. Good luck this year!!

nice job, what did you use on the drives and the stainless?

I did an acid wash on the drives and stainless steel to remove all the grime and hard water build up. It's a dilute hydrochloric acid with water that you just spray on (or wipe with a brush) and then use a brush to wipe/clean the areas (make sure you don't get any on you, if you do wash it off with water immediately). Don't leave the solution on for longer than about 3 minutes and then spray off with water. I repeated this 3 times and made sure to brush over all areas and then gave a really good final rinse with water to make sure all acid had been washed off. Topped off all the stainless steel with a stainless steel cleaner/polisher that I bought at Home Depot (don't remember the name).
Buffed and waxed the boat with performance boat candy wax which turned out really nice.

I use a product called "Roll Off" to remove oxidation that sounds just like what you described. I want to try "Boat Candy" to see how it holds up on my fore deck. I have been using Colonite Fleet Wax for years every where and it does well on all put the fore deck on the bow. How does "Boat Candy" hold up?

Nice job BTW...your boat looks great. I know it's a lot of work...especially that top fore deck. It's like waxing the top of a van.

This is the first year I have used boat candy. Bought the entire line of products at the end of last year and have been waiting to try it out. Judging from the first application of wax it seems to provide a great shine and gloss. I'm guessing the real test will be how it handles the rain and water. I did a lot of research and it seemed like many people on OSO were using boat candy and liking the results. Will try out the fabric restore spray next week when I detail out the interior.
I bought the entire line of products for around $100.00 which should last me a pretty long time.
It's been a lot of fun getting the boat back in shape. Saddly it needed a fair amount of TLC as the previous owner preferred to just put gas in the boat with no real care taken to wax, clean drives, or do much detail work. It looks night and day better now that it's owned by someone with attention to detail and a knack for cleaning...aka ME!!

Boat looks great! LOTO sucks!!!!!!! :)

Wow boat looks like new!
Where are you at lake of the ozarks?

7 Mile Marker, sooooo right in the thick of the "weekend washing machine water" on the summer weekends. Last year we stepped up from a 24' Liberator to a 31' Fastech and love the difference in the ride (not to mention speed/performance).
Where on the lake are you located?

Did you use said acid wash on the hull as well or just the drives? I have used muriatic acid before which seemed to stain my concrete a bit.

Some day I will have the time (and $$$$$$) to haul a boat to CA and FL and experience true offshore boating...can't wait, looks pretty amazing from the pics!

I just used the acid wash on the drives where the grime had built up pretty bad. Also used it around the exhaust pipes where some black coloring had started to set into the gelcoat (assuming from the many years of exhaust fumes).
The hull didn't need an acid wash because it was still in near mint shape, just needed to be cleaned and a couple applications of wax to bring back the shine. I had talked to the marine shop up the road from me and they acid wash the hull's on many boats but only really the boats that have a large amount of oxidation/discoloration or residue buildup on the hull. The guy took a look at my boat and said an acid wash wasn't necessary and I wouldn't gain anything from acid washing the hull. The drives, now that was a different story...they went from pretty ugly to looking brand new. I will definitely be performing an acid wash yearly on the drives to keep them fresh looking, plus it really only took at most 1.5 hours and I did 3 applications.

Don't worry about Nort he is just a bitter old man that hates the fact that the mid west farmers daughters like to take their cloths off! :eekdrop::eekdrop:

We are at the 45MM on the north shore.
Been down your way before, it gets real rough down there.
We have a 93 271 also, fun boat to drive, not real fast, tops out at 60 with a 4 blade 22P hydro.
Saves hours on the Donzi and the Wife and kids spend most the summer at the lake, the kids will be working down there this summer. they use the Formula when I'm not there.
The Daughter got a job as a server at Coconuts already.
Maybe we will see you around some time.
By the way LOTO is awesome!

Yea Saturday through mid-day on Sundays during June-Aug are incredibly rough water. So we just take the boat to a nice quiet cove and drop anchor, relax, swim, listen to music during the really rough part of the day. But any other time during the week it's a great area to boat around, plus I am really falling in love with boating during the "offseason" down there.
We really enjoy going to Coconuts and getting lunch, lounging, and playing some volleyball...its a great spot. Plus its really close to one of the quite coves we spend Saturdays in when the water is rough.
Definitely let me know when you will be at the lake this summer...can't say that I have ever taken the boat all the way to the 45MM (sounds like about $600.00 in gas round trip from the 7 YIKES!!). But there are always placed to meet in between.
PS- love the setup you have going...Donzi for yourself and 271 for the family, great idea, will def need to incorporate this into my boat buying plans in the future. HAHA

Boat Candy is what i'm using also..... i'll see how it holds up!

Will do We have a trailer for the formula and a ramp right by the house, its only about a 15 min pull to the Gravois ramp, we have been kicking around the idea of pulling the Formula over there to check out the other side of the lake and not have to burn $300 worth of fuel.

Jon......the problem is that the midwest farmer's daughters SHOULDN'T take their clothes off!!! Don't worry about LOTO folks.....they aren't going boating for another month or so till the ice breaks up and the mesquitoes start hatching. :D :drink: