All hail the mighty boat list! But before you break out the tools and start a major refit, there are a few minor details to examine that could have major implications.

Corroded fasteners, sticky jib hanks, leaky ports, intermittent wiring, peeling bright work, stubborn sheaves, and so on. The infamous ‘list’ of challenges and chores aboard any boat will likely read something like this and leave a lot to think about and more to actually do. So to keep orientated, we’ve compiled a quick and relatively painless inspection list to keep the boat from sinking, the engine from freezing, as well as some other minor pitfalls. By focusing on what’s right with your boat, you’ll feel better about getting around to whatever else is on your list and ensure that no other calamities crop up in the meantime.

Hose Clamps At the end of the day, your boat is floating because hose clamps are doing the most important job of any of the equipment on your boat, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. By their very nature and location in the dark and wet recesses of a boat, hose clamps run the risk of forgotten and overlooked. Naturally, marine grade stainless steel hose clamps should be used, but if you’ve just bought a boat with a dubious past or find yourself in a third world country looking for hose clamps, there are times when less than appropriate hose clamps, stainless bands with carbon steel screws, for example, can find their way on critical thru hull fittings. A cheap insurance policy is to replace all hose clamps when buying a boat--this gets you familiar with not only where your thru hulls are, but leaves peace of mind in its wake. And don’t think that double hose clamping is necessarily double the insurance. Some barbs will only accommodate one hose clamp, and putting another on actually does more harm than good. Don’t break out the torque wrench to tighten hose clamps either. You want them to be snug and then a bit more, but overdoing it can actually damage the hose.

Zincs Zincs are another often neglected area of maintenance. There are zincs in the engine, and zincs under the water, as well as in your sunscreen. Let’s take zincs in the engine first. The idea behind having zincs is that they provided a sacrificial protection against salt water corrosion. Dissimilar metals in saltwater have different characteristics and enact a chemical ballet beyond the scope of my brain in which one suffers at the expense of the other. The idea is that the zincs will go first. They are cheap, compared to buying a new heat exchanger and the ensuing damage that can happen should salt water make its way into the coolant, and on most engines, they are relatively accessible. The shelter of a marina can bring with it a maelstrom of galvanic corrosion due to suspect wiring on the dock and shore power cords draped in the water, so checking the zincs should actually be done more in a marina than if out cruising.

Corrosion in action: a new zinc and an old one side by side. Zincs should be changed when about half of their weight has gone.

Zincs on the hull and the prop also need periodic replacement. Would you rather buy a $12 zinc or a $400 prop? Or perhaps replacing all the thru hulls on your boat sounds appealing? The choice is yours. The right tool for the job is an scuba tank and a diver, or a Travel Lift and a haul out. The general rule is to replace zincs when about half of the anode has been lost to corrosion.

Cotter, Clevis Pins, Rings, and Rigging Etc. The rig is only as strong as the sum of its parts and its integrity often comes down to the lowly cotter pin and clevis ring. These should be checked to make sure that they are secure and properly aligned, and not only at the deck level, but up at the top of the mast and anywhere in between. Cracked sheaves can wear halyards down. Anything funky looking should be replaced, funky meaning bent toggles, cracks in the terminal fittings, elongated clevis pin holes, rivets that have broken off or screws that are backing out. It’s tempting to tape up turnbuckles to keep the cotter pin ends from scratching unsuspecting crewmembers, but we prefer to be able to see what’s happening and opt to use clevis rings instead.

Oil and Fuel Filter Quick, what’s the most expensive piece of equipment on your boat? Unless you’re sailing a Laser or a boat powered with an outboard, the answer will be the engine. Oil is the blood of the engine and diesel engines by their sooty nature require clean oil at regular intervals. Diesel engines like to run under load. Due in part to their higher compression, diesel engines are harder on oil than their gasoline counterparts. Most manufacturers recommend oil changes at 100-hour intervals, more often when regularly run under light loads, which includes running the engine to charge the batteries at anchor. Provided you have the scope and the anchor is really set, running the engine in gear in reverse can help keep the engine under load and combusting happily.

Fuel filters are another area that can make or break your day. The bottom line is to be religiously fanatic about what you put in the fuel tank. When cruising, take the time to filter all diesel from suspicious sources, which means pretty much everywhere, with a Baja-type filter. The attendant may have a huge sport fishing boat waiting to get in, and the flow into the tank and through the filter will be slower than if you just jammed it in the tank, but you only change a fuel filter in a pitching seaway on a hot engine once before you realize it’s more than worth the inconvenience. When you do change the fuel filter, after whatever length of time the owner’s manual specifies, write down the hours and date on the fuel filter itself, as well as in the engine log.

Quick, what’s the most expensive piece of equipment on your boat? Here’s a hint.

Transmission Check This is more or less a visual inspection of the shifter cables and linkages. Cracked cables are a sign that they need to be replaced. If you’ve never come into a marina filled with expensive boats and had no neutral or reverse due to a cracked cable, well, without boring you unduly with sea stories, this is what we’re trying to avoid. Watch the cables while someone shifts the gear shifter making sure that they don’t chafe against anything in the recesses of the engine room. Check the fluid and make sure that it’s not discolored or doesn’t smell--indicative of burned clutches caused by heating and severe duty. Change the fluid at the start of every season and at 250 hour intervals, or if you’ve had an ‘event’ like wrapping a lobster pot or spinnaker sheet-propeller-wrap-overheating situation.

While you’re back in this part of the woods, you might as well check out the packing gland--pretty much the biggest hole in the boat to begin with. We’ve switched to a dripless packing gland made by PSS and after several years of cruising can decidedly recommend the system, which is good for its simplicity and durability and trouble free design. A properly adjusted shaft packing gland should drip slightly (from 4 to 10 per minute) with the engine off. Too loose an adjustment will allow too much water in the bilge and engine operation will spray water from the shaft. Too tight an adjustment will rob the engine of power and the lack of water lubrication in the packing gland can generate enough heat to damage the gland and/or score the propeller shaft.

Bilge Pump Check The first thing to making sure that the bilge pump is going to work when you want it is to make sure that there’s nothing down there to clog it. Typical offenders include wire ties, screws, cat, dog, or human hair, wood shavings and, well, you get the picture. When the bilge is clear of water, a wet/dry vacuum can work wonders in getting rid of whatever is down there. Now make sure that no wires, hoses, or cables are going to interfere with the rise and the fall of the switch and manually raise the switch to see that the unit works. The wiring should be protected from the bilge water and the batteries powering the system should be reliable. Bilge pumps are only as reliable as the batteries powering them, so don’t skimp on anything you can buy at a car parts store; go deep cycle and sleep better at night.

The above really is just an outline to keep the boat floating and the rig intact. Entire books have been written about each subject, the point is to get you to think about the details we take for granted, the very ones that mean the boat is seaworthy or otherwise, with the idea that sailing is more pleasant when it’s the former, and a nightmare when it’s the latter.