5 ways to improve your boat maintenance checklist

The most important task for a boat owner is to maintain its boat and ensure its longevity. Most people find that maintaining their boat is about 10 percent of the cost of the boat, annually. Of course this may vary depending on the boat’s age, level of maintence held in the past, and other factors. Regardless, is a necessity to keep your boat up and running smoothly throughout its lifetime and assure safety at sea as well as the highest possible reselling value.

The first step into maintaining the vessel is to make sure that your boat maintenance checklist is up to date and fully developed. The maintenance checklist is what ensures that the dates of the checkups are written down and ready for you to see. In addition, it shows what the boat needs in terms of maintenance at certain points in time. The checklist is particularly important in making sure that the boat is safe to be taken out on water and ensure that you and your family have a great trip. 

There are a few ways on how to improve your boat maintenance checklist. Follow the article to find out what steps to take and what you should not neglect!

5 tips to improve the boat maintenance checklist

The first step in improving your boat maintenance checklist is to define a seasonal maintenance schedule as well as the steps to check. 

The next step is to digitise the whole maintenance checklist system and make sure that everything is on an app, such as TheBoatApp, in order to store all the details online. The main point of this step is to avoid losing relevant data and have all linkages and dependencies on a single place.

Furthermore, share your checklist tasks with all the parties taking care of your vessel. Sharing your tasks is intended as both sharing duties as well as sharing all the information required through the app, or the platform you are using, with all the team members looking after your boat. Your mechanic, electrician, marina manager, etc, better be on the same page with you on exactly what and when needs to be done.

Set alerts to remind you, and the staff with whom you are sharing the respective task, when you need to perform which maintenance chore. Most maintenance checks are better to be done in the time when your boat is not used much. As a general rule, is advisable to review your maintenance checklist and tasks at the end of the cruising season, make the necessary updates of the works to be done and finally schedule them for the low season, usually at the begining of spring, just before the new crusing season.

At last, built your checklist according to the manufacturers details. It is higly advisable, and probably linked with the warranty provided, to always look for and respect to the letter the manufacturer’s manual and guidelines provided there. Some boats might need more engine checks while other might require extra or special maintenance for the hull or the interior. Always make sure that your time and money is well spent. Even more, tracked and logged accordingly for keeping a diligent maintenance record for you as well as a potential future buyer who would be very happy, and pay the extra you may request, seeing a detailed maintenance log.