
Storing your boat for a bit? Whether it’s for the offseason, visiting family for the holidays or any of a hundred other good reasons, the question is always “what will I forget” about how I stored it?
We joke and call it “cruiseheimers” . . . but it can be a serious problem:
- If you closed the seacock to the engine, and forget to open it before starting it up, you can burn up the engine (ouch – $$!)
- Forgetting that the watermaker has pickling solution in it can contaminate your whole water supply.
- Turning on the freshwater pump while the valve from the water tank is closed will cause the pump to run forever and burn out.
- Forgetting that you turned down the float voltage on the solar charger (so as not to overcharge the batteries while stored) means they won’t be fully recharged as you’re using them.
and so on.
Dave and I are at least as forgetful as most. But so far — knock on wood — we’ve never had a serious screw up when recommissioning the boat.
The reason? I credit Dave and his background in heavy industry: we tag everything that isn’t left in it’s normal operating condition.
We also note any changes we’ve made for storing the boat in the maintenance log, but that’s more to remind us next time of what all we need to do (we also keep checklists on the computer). Tagging things right where we’ll be looking when we go to use them ensures that we’ll see the note at the critical moment. And when something is returned to it’s “normal” condition, we remove the tag.
Our tags are nothing fancy — most are pieces of blue tape with a note written with a Sharpie. Breaker switches that shouldn’t be turned on without a particular action taken have a piece of tape placed right over them. The watermaker output hose (the first step for us in making water is putting it in a jar for testing) is tagged with a reminder about the pickling — and that the prefilter needs to be replaced. The engine key is tagged with a reminder to open the seacock.

As a side note, we did the same thing at our house when we left it for six months to cruise last winter. That’s no longer a problem since we’ve sold the house and are once again full-time liveaboard cruisers!
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Carolyn Shearlock has lived aboard full-time for 17 years, splitting her time between a Tayana 37 monohull and a Gemini 105 catamaran. She’s cruised over 14,000 miles, from Pacific Mexico and Central America to Florida and the Bahamas, gaining firsthand experience with the joys and challenges of life on the water.
Through The Boat Galley, Carolyn has helped thousands of people explore, prepare for, and enjoy life afloat. She shares her expertise as an instructor at Cruisers University, in leading boating publications, and through her bestselling book, The Boat Galley Cookbook. She is passionate about helping others embark on their liveaboard journey—making life on the water simpler, safer, and more enjoyable.
Tony Gariepy says
it just takes a moment, makes it easy, and can prevent SO many problems!
Robin Hughes Parker says
Love this idea! Julie Serfass, Chris Fisher, Darren Parker, we can also make more use of the label maker when we learn where all Strike’s hoses go!
Bill Miller says
Great ideas, I use them on commercial vessels. You should on yours.
Kerri says
Great idea! And I love the blue beads!!
Jude says
I hang the engine keys over the handle of my raw water intake seacock. I can’t grab the key until I open the seacock. If the keys are in my hand, the seacock is open.