08 Jul Before Moving Boat Checklist

As you get ready to leave the marina slip or weigh anchor, do you find yourself wondering what you’ve forgotten to do?  Whether it’s double-checking that all lockers are latched (so no cans will become missiles), or closing all the hatches and portholes, it seemed that Dave and I usually managed to miss something.

Tired of drying dishes sliding off the counter, cans falling out of lockers, dragging a bag of clams and more, Dave and I developed a “Before Moving the Boat” checklist.  Now, this is just the stuff to prep the boat in general — not the things like checking the engine coolant and oil, which are also important.

If you want such a list for yourself, I’ve made mine into a downloadable Word doc (below).  But you’ll have to customize it for your own boat — you may not have to move a rug or get the dog’s leash out, for example.  And over time, we changed some items and added others — initially, it seemed that we added items almost every time we went anywhere!

There are lots of columns so that I don’t need to print one off each time we leave an anchorage/marina.  My way of using it is to check everything off as I do it — or if it doesn’t apply.  Then, literally immediately before hoisting the anchor or casting off the dock lines, I double-check the list to make sure there is a check mark in every box in today’s column.

We taped it inside the cover of our log . . . and yes, you’ll see that I wasn’t always perfect about checking off the items that didn’t apply!

Get the .doc template here — just open and edit in any word processing program and then print as needed.