Help! My boat is listing!
By John Morris
Lists are part of the spring season. Why? I think you know. Procrastination. As my very wise father once said, “never put off for tomorrow what you can get out of doing altogether.” Lists are the vehicle to that end.
Needless to say, you have seen and studied any number of Get Ready for Launch lists. Here’s part of the Discover Boating ‘De-Winterizing’ topics list:
- Removing Winter Cover
- Cleaning and Waxing
- Painting the Bottom
- Taking Care of Teak
This is a list that clearly has not much value besides providing an opportunity to put off actually doing something. If you were for some reason inclined to leave the winter cover on for the season, this list would be very helpful to remind you not to do that. Excellent work, list makers.
Here’s the way to perfect your spring commissioning list. Step 1: Google “spring boat commissioning list”. My search produced 14 pages of lists (try it yourself!) I picked the second from the top, sponsored by a well-respected manufacturer of boat supplies, and downloaded their list, which was six pages of detailed steps to clean the hull, water system, ports and much more—a procrastinator’s dream. This should take the best part of April to read and consider, and it’s only one of hundreds of lists.
After thoroughly contemplating Spring Prep, there are a number of good lists you can make that will further postpone the inevitable. A very important one is The Guest List of People to Invite Out on the Water This Summer Including the Friends We Meant to Invite Last Year but Didn’t Get Around To list. A generous summer allocation would be 20 high season weeks = 40 weekend days. (Note to fanatics: just because you go boating every day doesn’t mean others can.) Eliminating rain, cold, and other social commitments (why would niece Martha have a wedding in July? What’s wrong with November?) leaves perhaps a dozen suitable days for showing off the boat. Juggling the list to determine who makes the cut can take many evenings. Even more critical is the Relatives Sub List, since very few of them are on speaking terms.
Then there’s family cruise time. This year we are spending our vacation days in Canada, so it’s time to plot out a week on the Trent or the coast. Plot your points of calls, research the lunch spots, the charts you’ll need, and make a master list.
A cruise with the family may well invite some upgrades to the boat. Better berth cushions? That electric head? A freezer upgrade over the cooler? List the alternatives and call a family meeting. The family will vote for all the upgrades, so you will have a project list that will crash your laptop. And don’t forget the What Needs Fixing list and the What Needed Fixing Last Year list.
Once these lists are complete, the only remaining task is to make a List Checklist so you can be certain you’ve made all the lists. After that, there’s no choice but to actually clean your boat. Sorry.
