Lake Pal as a fellow 308 owner and previous 28 skater owner that lives in S. FL and boats in Salt Water year around you are way over thinking it and worrying too much. Ask any of the guys on here that have seen my stuff and they will tell you it is nicer than new. I wash everything outside incl trailer a steel trailer with soap and water.
flush motors, mist interior with fresh water and wipe down all gauges, throttles etc. I do wax and polish all metal once every couple of months depending on use. Taboma is correct the 300xs cowlings injest a ton of salt water on a cat. I got rid of mine and went with the Nass version on the OPTI's i had with the plenum glassed in. Problem solved. Motors stayed really clean. The 300 x cowlings are pretty good also. I do routinely take them off and wipe them down with CRC 666 but not every time out. Enjoy the boat and salt water and being limited to the same surroundings all the time! JMO

Its about an hour ritual every time I come back. We run in salt and brackish water, but I always rinse motors, outside and cockpit right when I get home. I have I/Os but either flush with freshwater same day or next day then if its going to sit for a few weeks or month, i run salt away through muffs.

Gauges will be fine, just rinse it off. You can use mild soap, but just make sure you rinse the salt off and your good... also let dry or wipe down before covering.

Nawlins life!

Been a boater for 48 years now. The last 30 in saltwater running a commercial boat for business and pleasure boating.

I dont get the whole fascination with spending 2 hours cleaning the boat every time you come home from a day of boating.

Maybe if you have a 1/2 million dollar offshore boat, but if I could afford one myself I would surely hope it isn't such an expenditure for me that I would want to spend 2 hours not boating but instead cleaning and polishing it.

I'm not a fan of anything dirty except certain women, but man some of you go overboard with the cleaning..

Plenty of freshwater and opening hatches so some areas can dry out works wonders , if you want to wipe the interior and dash dry that would be a plus .

Believe me, I would never come in from a day of saltwater boating and not rinse the boat.

Because I know it will be 4 times as much work to clean it the next day if you don't rinse it in the morning before the dew drys.

I have caught hell from the girlfriend back in the day because I was out in the noseeums and Mosquitos rinsing the boat off a minute while she sat in the air conditioned no bug car whining how she was hungry and needed a Martini. STAT.

But I have also been at the dock and seen the anal guy taking a hour to clean and polish his boat while the wife and kids get eaten alive.

Crazy.

The girlfriends dad down here in SWFlorida had a nice 25 Stingray bow rider I orded new for him with the 300mpi and a bravo 3. Nice built boat unbelievably, Stingray came a long way . Nicely done interior with a lot seating for about 12.

Her and I used it 90 percent of the time putting 500 hours on it over 6 years, a lot of guests a lot of hard beach days on it.

Dry stacked with it left in the water overnight until the marina would pull it the next morning.Never anything more than a good rinse and tip the cushions up and open compartments at the end of the day than Into the barn.

Maybe every 6 months pull it apart and clean compartments out real good and get rid of gunk and hair .

Dirtiest it ever got is when it sat in the barn for months at a time during the winter with no use and got covered with soot and dust.

Sold the boat after 6 years and it looked as good as new with that little bit of effort. If I had spent 4 times the effort you would have never been able to tell the difference.

Went through a a set manifolds and was due for another set by the time it was sold.



I don't know about Mercury outboards , but I think most people on this site will die of old age before they kill a Yamaha from use or corrosion if half way taken care of . One word. ZINCS.

You can saltaway your I /0 all day long. It's all good if you are running in saltwater and never turn your motor off until you get back and immediately flush it, but what about those lunch stops and beach stops for 3-4 hours.

Corrosion never rest. We used to flush the crap out of the 330 mercs we used to run in the commercial boats .

Didn't matter a bit , the risers looked like crap after a year. The 1st time you shut the key off without flushing immediately the corrosion began.

Best thing that happened to I/0s was the 496 with it's closed cooling.

Biggest thing that drives me crazy on saltwater boats is corrosion on the wiring under the dash and in the engine compartment if not done correctly with quality materials.

It's almost inevitable .

It's a Frikin boat, use it , enjoy it.

I personally accepted the fact when I bought my boat that I'd be spending 2-3 hrs washing it after each use in saltwater. I'd rather spend my time maintaining it than my $$$ repairing it, IMO.

I wash the entire boat + trailer with water after pulling the boat. Then run freshwater thru the muffs for a few minutes followed by salt-away (everytime). Also give the boat a quick spray down on each side with the salt-away, but I end up going over the entire boat with a sponge-pad anyway, including the cockpit area if I got water in it. As for the dash, I only get mine lightly wet and then dry it off with an absorber (shammy).

Boat is stored outdoors in south FL, under 2 covers. Waxed twice a year, and I apply a vinyl cleaner/protectant to all the cushions about every other month.

Salt-away has been great for me. Dawn dish soap might do the same job for the engines and drives, but you don't wanna spray that on the surface of your boat (it'll pull the wax right off) and salt-away doesn't have that effect.

I don't think a single person here cleans their boat at the ramp...just saying.

And yes taking care of a large Offshore boat is a bit different then the 25 Stringray that hops to the islands. We do the hour or so of clean up so that we can continue to keep using it often and keep it looking in it's best condition while we do.

Here is my routine, granted my boat hasn't seen salt long.

Get home flush motors with water, then salt away, then water again.

While motors are running wipe down interior with simple green. Its my go to interior cleaner (if you get on vinyl make sure you reprotect. I use 303 for that)

After motors are flushed and interior wiped down, I put on cockpit cover.

From there everything gets hit with fresh water, then salt away, then fresh again.

This is the method I use, and I have seen zero degradation of my boat. Now keep in mind this is a **** ton of work, but my boat hasn't seen salt until recently and I want it to stay looking like that.

I've been boating in only saltwater for nearly 50 years. All I've ever done is rinse with freshwater and thoroughly towel dry everything. CRC or WD 40 on drive, engine etc.

Same here. If you get onto it as soon as the boat comes out of the water it's simple. If you leave the boat overnight before cleaning, your workload doubles. Leave it two or three night and the work trebles!

Inboards like a light spray of WD40 but newer outboard cowls (certainly Verados) are extremely watertight. With triples on a Fountain they would get very wet when I back off the plane but never saw a drop of moisture under the cowls.

I never had to go crazy cleaning because it was always done as soon as she came out the water.

RR

That 25 Stingray had twice the amount of interior as most modern offshore boats and was every bit of the quality if not more with high grade Naugahyde and no wood.

I have seen countless guys spending hours cleaning the boat at the marina after a few hours out. And not necessarily offshore boats, just fancy CC and mid size cruisers. You can tell their families don't want to go with them anymore because they take the fun out of boating with the anal cleanup process.

We Get It your Anal. Have a older brother like that and have boated with a few . Neither of them much fun.

Point I wa trying to get across is in 4 years the difference between countless hours fawning over the cleanup process as opposed to a quick efficient wash down and air out will be unnoticed.

I am all about the mechanicals on a boat. Nothing ruins a day of boating like a breakdown,ne specially an avoidable one from lack of care or maintenance .

Spend hours drying and wiping the spots off the boat and than within 5 minutes of being out it has more spots.

K-Razy.
Be Free. Get rid of the I/Os

Agree, when we were trailering the PP we spent as much time if not more fussing with it as running it. Friends/family weren't into the wait for sure. A good wash/flush and wipe down is good enough, all my equipment over the years looked top notch and never had a problem selling them.