Tips To Prepare Your Boat For Hurricane Season

September 5, 2019

Along with preparing your family, home residence, and other properties for a hurricane, it is equally important to prepare your boat.

The Boat Lift Pro’s is here to give you a few tips that could make the difference between your boat surviving the storm or not. Here’s a link to NOAA’s site for great tips!

Make A Plan: Not planning is just planning to fail. Living in SW Florida which is prone to hurricanes, it is important to have a hurricane plan in place for your boat before a hurricane warning is even forecasted. Always remember having some sort of plan is better than having no plan at all!

Remove Anything from Your Boat That Can Catch the Wind: Removing sales, biminis, and any other removable parts from the outside of your boat. With removing items be sure to remember to add extra lines if your boat is going to remain in the water during the storm.

Strap Her Down! Strap your boat down securely to a cleats bolted to pilings, or to eyes set in concrete, just be sure it’s secure! Also be sure that the straps provide little or no stretch. Boats that are hauled, anchored, and prepped to reduce windage stand the best chance against mother nature. It’s important to remember that when you bring your boat ashore that you must store it on high ground. Ashore in some low-lying areas might be under water during a hurricane! Make sure you store your boat well above the anticipated surge.

Know Your Marina: Marinas with floating docks and 16 to 18 feet tall pilings allow boats to rise and fall with surge without stretching and stressing lines. This is the safest marina to leave your boat in during a hurricane and may not need to bring your boat out of the water for it to be safe. HOWEVER, if the marina has a floating dock with short pilings you definitely need to plan to bring her out of the water. The shorter the pilings the less likely they’ll be able to accommodate the surge, which could cause your boat to be lifted above the pilings and carried away. Also, if your marina is protected by a low-lying seawall or a spit of land your boat is especially prone to surges. Once the surge rises above it there is virtually no protection from the breaking waves no matter how well your boat is secured. If your marina is in one of these locations don’t risk leaving your boat there. Here’s a video on how to prep your boat.

We here at The Boat Lift Pro’s want to make sure that your boat makes it all the way through Hurricane Season. This year it seems the tropics are in a complete uproar and preparing for hurricane season is definitely in your best interest.