Is It Necessary to Haul Out Each Year To Let the Boat "Dry Out"

[Pete7]

We don't lift out for the winter because there is no way in a damp and cold English winter a hull is going to dry out. Nor am I lying upside down in a boatyard in February trying to antifoul paint

We don't have water inside the boat, but many do. I have always wondered if this helps the hull reach high moisture levels, certainly can't help trying to dry a hull out.

Finally propping a boat up in a frame or with posts and oil drums means the structure is rigit, you hope. So when the wind really blows what happens to all that energy absorbed by the mast and rigging? I would rather the yacht sit in water so she can lean over in a storm and dissipate the energy.

[hoppy]

In Melbourne and Sydney there are ten's of thousands of yachts and motorboats that spend their whole lives in the water. There are no club or marina yards that can handle any sort of volume of boats out of the water, so they haul out, get the work done and launch.

The whole haul out for winter mentality is a northern Europe and America thing where you haul out because of ice and when your boat moves to a warmer climate, you have the urge to haul out. I know the urge, because after living in Sweden 12 years, I asked about the haul out need in Greece when I bought my boat.

In the med I suspect that they have the large yards partly because of their northern customers urge to haul out (the main reason will because they have a large volume of boats to work on and no rush)

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I saw a fairly recent Jeanneau having an extensive peel and fibreglass replacement not very long ago. Overall, I would say Jeanneau seem to more rarely suffer problems than most brands, but it seems very difficult to predict which boats will be affected.

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And Halberg Rassy built a boat with severe delamitation problems and Oyster built a boat that had it's keel fall off. Sometimes factories build Friday boats

[Polux]

Yes, unless you have an epoxy boat...and even so. Gelcoat is not absolutely waterproof and absorbs some water and unless you remade at least each 5 years your epoxy coat barrier, yes , it is better to haul out every year. Remadening every 5 years the coat barrier (several coats) is expensive and you have to be absolutely sure your boat is bone dry and off course take away all antifouling

Much less expensive to take the boat out of water some months in a year.

[hoppy]

btw from what I heard, if you haul out every year and let your boat dry out, your antifouling becomes less effective and you need to give your boat a fresh coat.

My antifouling was less than one year old when the boat was shipped to Australia. I was told I should give it a fresh coat , but that was not practical. I had the boat in the water for 3 months and a diver scraped the bottom. Two months later I hauled out and the AF was totally useless and the bottom had a garden.

Previously I have kept the boat in the water getting 2 seasons out of the antifouling with a diver doing a clean in the spring.

I suppose that many fly in owners of boats in the Med think they are saving money by hauling out for winter, but in the end it costs them more as they have the haulout cost every year and the bottom job costs. Whilst owners who keep their boats wet can do the haul out every 2nd year and just pay a diver,

[DameGravey]

If it was neccesary to haul a boat out for its health, there would be a lot of very unhealthy boats in Sydney (and probably most other parts of Ausralia). Very few non trailable boats come out of the water for more than a short period to facilitate bottom maintenance.
A caveat: there are lots of very unhealty mooring minders around these parts, but they are neither used or maintained. We are fortunate here to be able to use our boats 12 months of the year.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by DameGravey

We are fortunate here to be able to use our boats 12 months of the year.

[44'cruisingcat]

Yep. In Australia the vast majority of boats spend their whole lives in the water, apart from brief haulouts to re antifoul.

Haven't heard of worse osmosis problems here, compared to anywhere else.

[IdoraKeeper]

I think this points out that there are no perfect boat building materials. Each has its own downside. My old epoxy frp strip plank sloop had water ingress at several locations. Nothing lasts forever. You know your boat best. That said some flaws/conditions are very hard to detect while the vessel is in the water. Then you pull her out and lose a season fixing what you find.

[Kenomac]

Thanks for the many informative replies so far.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Thanks for the many informative replies so far.

If you are getting copper coat, then you perhaps don't need to haul out for years. I assume you can send a diver down at the start of each season to give it a scrub down and check/replace the anodes

[markpierce]

I haul out annually but not to dry out. Have hull inspected, zincs replaced as necessary, and bottom paint and propeller treatment as necessary. Other people, however, rely mostly on divers to maintain hull between long-between haul outs.

[GILow]

Our boat has been in the water pretty much continuously since 1980. Polyester resin hull, no problems so far, at least none I know about. The boat has spent most of its life between 5 degrees south and 40 degrees south.

[DeepFrz]

Originally Posted by markpierce

I haul out annually but not to dry out. Have hull inspected, zincs replaced as necessary, and bottom paint and propeller treatment as necessary. Other people, however, rely mostly on divers to maintain hull between long-between haul outs.

Nice boathouse.

[Djarraluda]

On a slightlyy sideways track. When I had my first boat in Pommyland, (Essex) we used the saltings for mud-berths during the winter. Hauled for repaint in spring. Reason was a) timber likes the salt water; and b) the saltings protected topsides from floating ice as it carried down-tide. The rain at low water froze in the shallows and thus floated free with the tide, travelling down and ripping the topsides around the waterline for those foolish enough not to listen.
Fast forward and with marinas, we do not get much ice flow, nor many mud-berths available. Additionally, it it fine for GRP boats to sit on the hard and dry-out.

In HK, we always stayed afloat but it was the acid and grease in the typhoon shelters that attacked the boot topping of my teak hull, until I found 2 pot poly bottom worked a treat. Teak does not worry too much about osmosis so......

As noted, in much of Aus, we sail for approx 363 days a year, allow the other 2 for an antifoul, but then my current boat has a vinyl ester hull as well. Last boat was 40 years old, always in the water and solid GRP hull built with ISO resins so it was sound.
Roger

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by David M

Modern resins do not absorb water like some of the older resins used to. So if you have a newer fiberglass boat then no, you don't need to haul it out.

Anywhere else on the boat that might be harboring water can be taken care of with a dehumidifier or with small heaters like Golden Rods that keep the relative humidity down.

If you have an older boat with a resin that has absorbed water and is now blistering then you have a greater problem. It takes months to dry that type of resin plus any blisters you have need to be ground out and filled. A boat like this then needs multiple coats of an epoxy sealer like Interlux 2000 or 3000 to create a water barrier coat so this does not happen again.

Hopefully, your boat is the former and not the latter.

https://www.amazon.com/Goldenrod-725.../dp/B00DBTCFGY

Hmmm. My first fiberglass sailboat was in the 1960s. I think she was built in 1964. Never left the water for the 4 years I owned her. This was in So Calif. so no winter problems. I cleaned the bottom regularly (myself), and by the time she went to a new home to the north the paint was, well, very thin, but no problems. In my in non-expert opinion it was the builder and the technique that caused problems, not so much the resin products. The earlier builders were less skilled in accounting so were more generous with such things as time and material, which created fewer problems. But then almost all of them went broke didn't they?