And it looks like it's over for the year with only one outing.
We were supposed to go out a few times, but every time our schedules allowed, the weather didn't.
Our initial outing was canxed when both batteries were dead to the point even the battery charger starter wouldn't do the trick.
Other times the Admiral had to work too many shifts in a row and couldn't muster the desire, something went wrong at home, the dog got sick, or any other rotten excuses.
No reason to change the oil since it hardly even circulated in the system, and I don't know whether adding more stabil is just putting a bandaid on an oozing sore of aging gas.
At least I got antifreeze into the block to lubricate and protect the engine from the the water that has been sitting there since our one outing.

Please let next year be better.

Sorry to hear. Sometimes it just goes like that. At least next year has to be better.

How is the truck project going?

Stalled..... Latest is he can get me into the shop in November. We'll see

I can relate. With my cancer issues and the COVID lockdowns and all the other crap going on we only got out three times--once for a day on the water, the second time was our ill fated start on taking the boat to Seattle in July, then when we eventually got around to taking it to Seattle. Sucks.

I visit my 4 boats nearly every weekend between Memorial and almost Hallowe'en. Haven't gotten a one of 'em wet since 2018, and THAT year the Regal went to the dock in June, and back on the trailer in September. Never left the dock. Every spare minute I can find gets used on the SkipperLiner. Those spare minutes keep dwindling. The engraving work just won't stop coming. This damn-pennic, it's like, for every customer I've lost to temp or permanent shutdowns, I've picked up 2 new customers, mostly because THEY lost their engravers to temp or permanent shutdowns. Haven't had a day off yet this year. I've only been able to work on the boat on Sundays, but before I head for the lake I put in 7 or 8 hours, then put 4 or 5 hours in on the boat, then come home and work till 1:30. Right now the temps are PERFECT for working on the boat, but all the new ski lift installation orders in this country that were put on hold in February, I just got word they're all 'a go', so my workload's about to increase by about 40%. Mo money, boom! Mo free time, splat... The good thing is I'm finally seeing daylight on this project. Just need 4 or 5 days to finish and coal tar, then a day for the anti-fouling paint...

I'm going boating next year come hell or high water. Haven't been planning on high water, but I've been told recently that the Farmer Almanac says this winter will be a bad one... I can only hope

I've burned about 60 gallons of fuel, the boat is at the lake house and is used when we're at the lake. In fact my wife is taking a 3 day lake trip now as we're between renters right now. This year the rental business has been beyond great as many people are looking for near by vacations this year. Rentals have covered my mortgage payments this year.

Our forecast for the weekend is mid 80's so were are heading down to take advantage of it as it could be the last good boating weekend. Hopefully not.

Pretty much the same for us, WayWeGo is still in the slip and has not left since last fall. What a crazy year.

Hope to get out this weekend, if I don't have problems starting the engines for the first time in 10 months!

I’m sorry so many didn’t get to enjoy the water this year. In my case, it was a great year. We spent almost every weekend on the water. Norris is a spectacular lake but the only issue this year was too many rookie boaters. I am a little sad that fall is here and I’m going to get the boat winterized over the next couple of weeks. Somehow we went form 90 degree days to 60s. This weekend is supposed to be lows in the low 40s so it is time to pack it in for the season.

That said...and not boating related, I have lots of projects that I need to get to so maybe it is ok to put the boat away. I got a wood chipper last year ( woodland mills wc88) and can’t wait to continue attacking my scrub pines.

I did about half of the usual amount of boating. COVID was a factor yes, but there were others. Some family members have moved across country in the past couple of years so less frequent gatherings.

Additionally, my boat decided to crap out on Labor Day weekend so there were a few days less of typical use, and we also did not do our annual trip to Martha's Vineyard because of COVID.

Right now the boat is on the hard - I got about 80 gallons of extra fuel left. I usually plan to have about 30 gallons left and pump it out and feed it to the cars. 80 gallons seems like too much, so I double-dosed it with stabilizer and will let it sit for the winter.

My winterization ritual begins on Friday . . .

Replace port engine distributor (I did the starboard engine when it crapped out over Labor Day)
Fuel system cleaning and combustion chamber de-carb
Compression test (1,040 hours on the engines - I have not run compression tests in a couple of years, so this will be good to get done)
Cylinder Leak test
Engine Anti-Freeze, Fogging, draining
Fresh water system purge and AF
Off-loading all of the gear and cabin cushions
Mold prevention
Rodent prevention
A-frame and tarp


I think the only season when I used my boat less was the year when gasoline was $4.50/gallon and $5+ at the marinas.

" so I double-dosed it with stabilizer and will let it sit for the winter."

Have you guys noticed that Stabil now has a marine version? Fortunately, I found that the original red Sta-bil costs more per gallon of treatment than the marine version. In my case, the local auto parts store prices both products the same. The 9 oz. bottle of red treats only 40 gallons while the same size marine treats 80 gallons. It's even cheaper at WalMart--of course.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/STA-BIL-...5336725388&wl7=&wl8=&veh=sem

Not sure which version of Stabil tastes better. . . The red or the green?

I had a bunch of the red stuff . . . so in the tank it went.

Walmart is my source of choice . . . but you *can* pay double at West Marine

I have been using Startron for years on our boats and never had a problem with it. I do use Stabil on all my other gas cans. With all the problems with phase separation, I put stabilizer in every time I fill up the boat or any gas can.

Last few years we have been using Seafoam.

I don't run stabilizer during the season, just at the end of the season. I consider it an incentive to use the boat often . . .

I usually off-load the fuel, but this year I have too much left and have already added Stabil, as mentioned. I'll off-load some for the lawn mowers and snow-blowers over the winter.

I use Seafoam for fuel system cleaning and de-carb. @Dave R led me onto a neat 'trick' to doing a decarb on my MPI engines. He told me about mixing up a batch of 50% Seafom 50% gasoline and run the engines from an auxiliary tank. During the run, disconnect 1 (or 2) of the ignition wires from the distributor so that those cylinders get the seafoam without burning it. Run it for a couple of minutes and then go on to the next set of cylinders until all cylinders had there dose of seafoam. Then I switch back to gasoline and run the engines for a while.

I plan to do that today, followed by a compression test and a cylinder leak test, then the usual anti-freeze and fogging tomorrow. The engines have about 1040 hours, so this will be a 'health checkup'.

I believe Dave R's method is very similar to what my Volvo manual says.

Interesting. . . can you post an excerpt of it?

tpenfield:
If I could post a photo of the winterizing pages for my particular model which is 57GIC-300-P, I would. But, earlier this year, I tried to post some photos, but was unsuccessful, even though I have posted many photos before. I wrote a page on the BoatingABC site for assistance, but there was no response.

As you might imagine, VP has many different engines, and many of them are similar to the others in some ways and some different. For example, ours is a GiC-P. the Gi is fuel injected. The C is catalytic converters. The P is a production number, I think.

I checked to see if Volvo has manuals available, and they are not on the VP website. Have you considered checking the internet for how-to's for your specific VP system? I just googled and got a ton. I found a bunch of YouTube offerings.

When our boat was new, I was given a complete set of user manuals by the manufacturer.

Edited---New information that I just discovered.
VP does have some manuals available. Check out this site.

https://www.volvopenta.com/service-and-support/your-engine/manuals-and-handbooks/

Yes, now if I only had a Volvo Penta engine with a valid serial number

Thanks Jack for sending the info from the VP manual. It seems to describe a fogging process, not a de-carb process.

I think Dave R's method remains 'safe' as his own invention