leaving a boat in the water
 

so i leave my smaller boat in the lake by my house all summer. My question is how hard is this on the outdrive? It has a bravo 1 with an alum. prop. The fiberglass always looks fine, i just acid clean it at the end of the year no blisters in the fiberglass or anything. But my outdrive and prop has a lot of oxidation to it at the end of the year..So is there some easy steps to help this from happening without pulling the boat? Will this hurt the outdrive or prop? It maybe electrolysis im unsure?

as long as you have all the proper zinc's on the boat, it should not cause any problems. we leave our boat sit in the water all summer, and have never had a problem. However, i have a volvo sx, not that I can imagine it makes much of a difference.

Would this help? Mercathode ?
also the boat is hooked up to a shore power for the battery charger

lake? not great salt lake? use magnesium, not zinc. and Volvo aluminum seems to be tougher than Merc. at least the creeks on the Del river seem to beat Merc aluminum up worse than any others.

Because its hooked up to shorepower its crucial the zincs are in good working shape. As mentioned, magnesium for fresh water.

Yep, magnesium all the way. If you cannot find mag, use the aluminum anodes. The zincs are near useless in fresh water. The last 4 boats I have had were in the water 24/7/365. A good coat of bottom paint, correct anodes and clean runnig gear go a long ways.

thanks guys, ill have to put a coat of black bottom paint on my outdrive, and a good magnesium for it also....Should the prop be fine or should i paint that as well?

alot of people do it and boats last. But the fact is put metal in water it will corrode faster than not in water. Personally I would never leave the boat in the water. If I had a cottage or anything else it would be on a lift.

DON'T paint the outdrive. Most bottom paints have copper in them and having copper over aluminum will cause corrosion due to being dis-similar metals. Also seeing that your in Michigan, use VC-17 paint, don't use some cheap black paint. VC-17 is ultra thin, goes on smooth and won't build up like every other paint. The original color will go on copper color but will change to a gun metal gray as it sits in the water. This is the only paint I use on my sailboat. And when I changed from ablative paint to VC-17 I picked up .75 of a knot. That's a lot on a sailboat that only goes 6.5 mph to begin with.

Only use bottom paint of anti-fouling outdrive paint made for aluminum. West Marine and Interlux make it in spray cans. Trilux 33 for your outdrive is your best bet. No copper. It is made for aluminum and steel hulls. The spray cans I spoke of above is Trilux 33. You can get it in "clear", but it does not seem to be as efective as black.

The best way to keep it clean is run it every week or so. Or jump over the side and scrub it down occasionally.

If you do use bottom paint, always (ALWAYS!) leave an inch or more border of no-bottom paint around your outdrive to seperate it from your hull's bottom paint. The copper in the bottom paint will react as a dissimilar metal with your outdrive and/or anodes and cause havic with your corrosion issues.