Have you ever changed the furniture around in a room and noticed that the whole house felt like a new place? Or remarked to yourself that your car drives better after a good detailing of the interior? Sometimes little changes can make a big difference in how we perceive even the most familiar things. Now that boating season has pretty much wrapped up in the Northeast, this is a great time to plan winter work on some of the projects you didn’t get to last summer. Sure, you’ve got the usual maintenance items, but some small projects could go a long way toward making your boat look and feel better come spring launch time. Here are a few ideas:
– Choose a new color of bottom paint. Change can be exciting!
– Install trim tabs to improve your boat’s ride.
– Organize loose items in your lockers and cabinets into plastic totes and waterproof trays.
– Recover your worn out cushions.
– Clean the salt and grime out of your winches.
– Bring your canvas enclosure to a local sail loft for cleaning.
– Give your engine compartment a good cleaning and change out the oil absorbs.
– Compound and wax your hull to restore the luster and get rid of that milky film.
– Clean and polish your oxidized aluminum rails and hardware.
– Replace the gaskets in your leaky hatch(es) and ports.
– Redo the worn name and hail on the transom.
– Replace the snaps that have pulled out of the sides of the cabin or hull.
– Clean and oil your teak decks to make them look like new.
– Replace the horn. It hasn’t worked for years.
– Add underwater lights and/or some cool LED lighting in the cockpit.
– Unroll the Isinglass and clean it up now.
– Install a solar panel to keep your batteries charged.
– Upgrade your cockpit stereo speakers.
