Just wondering what the basic steps are in order to winterized my boat. I have a 400ss and it is bigger than previous boats I have had. I was thinking you just need to drain the heads, any water that is in the engine compartment, and pull out/ charge the batteries. Is this pretty accurate? The boat will be stored inside a heated barn.

What happens if the power goes out due to a prolonged winter storm?

Unless you have a foolproof backup power/heat system, one must do a full winterization, not just drain the motors. If you have heat exchangers/closed cooling, they are the first to crack, and quite expensive.

Also, you must drain and then run pink RV antifreeze through your fresh and head water systems.

There are hundreds of threads on this topic.
But it's WAY too early to be talking about this! Call us back at the end of next month!

No ****. I clicked on this wondering if it was a joke.

Well up here in michigan we haven't really had a summer, so I figured id just get the boat tucked away early and not have to worry about it anymore.

Amen on the lack of summer. We're in Petoskey today and it is cool and cloudy. There hasn't really been a stretch of sunny warm weather for a while.

+1 for making sure there is a backup heat source. We do heated storage and the place where we store it has redundant heat and power out/low temp alarms. That, and the guy who owns it visits all the time doing winter maintenance on the boats.

Let's see . . . Michigan, heated barn, power failure. . . .

I'm thinking you need to do a full winterization just in case something bad happens.

You want to completely drain the fresh water system as well as the water heater tank.. I usually use compressed air to blow out the lines . . .

Then winterize the engines by running -100 F antifreeze through each engine intake and then drain the block or heat exchanger, depending on what setup you have (Closed cooling verses Raw water cooling).

Then get water out of everywhere it may exist. Antifreeze in the toilet, pump out for the waste tank, etc.

Put the bow up a bit and remove the transom drain plug.

Michigan isn't Antarctica, LOL! Florida saw some nice freezing temps last winter, just after I bought my boat and trailered it to Michigan. Dealer need to winterize down there too.

Michigan summer is on the cooler side this year, but still some nice weekends ahead. I kept it in a heated barn last winter. I had red pop in the water tank (don't drink it anyway). Gray water was drained. Closed loop cooling was drained of water.

Had new exhaust system installed before I stored it, battery froze but noting else was damaged (service guys didn't have it stored inside).

If you do that stuff mentioned, should be ok. You'd need quite some time (week or more) w/o heat for the boat to begin to freeze in a barn (usually headed have some insulation).

BTW: Is the 400SS at McMachen yours? Saw your posts about Harrison Twp and saw that boat on a hoist yesterday.

Nope my boat is out on the middle channel, near browns. How about anything for the a/c unit or the generator as well, what kind of stuff needs to be done for those things, if anything?

Not sure on that one,

Give Art Cook at Art Cook Marine a call. He's on the island, across from the Ferry. Does great work, he did the work on my boat and he just redid my buddies Cigarette. He's also been very helpful with questions as well.

Eric