What should I check in the bilge right after launching a boat in the spring?

Before the travelift releases the slings, lift every cabin floorboard and inspect all underwater through-hulls and seacocks with dry tissue paper, check the speed-log transducer housing, burp any trapped air from a dripless shaft seal, and start the engine to verify cooling water flows cleanly from the exhaust.

How often should I replace my boat's raw-water impeller and anodes?

Inspect and replace sacrificial anodes whenever they are more than 40–50% eroded (typically every spring fitting-out), and fit a fresh raw-water pump impeller at the start of each season while keeping last year's intact impeller on board as an emergency spare.

Spring Fitting-Out Checklist for Boat Owners | Taffrail

There are two kinds of boat launches in April.

In the first, the owner climbs down the ladder ten minutes before the travelift arrives, wipes a smudge of antifouling off their knuckles, steps aboard once the boat is floating in the well, turns the key, checks for a solid stream of cooling water out the exhaust, and motors calmly to their summer berth.

In the second, the travelift is already honking beside the cradle while the owner is underneath the hull scraping dried bottom paint off the depth transducer, before discovering in the slings that the raw-water impeller is still in its box on the saloon table and the galley drain seacock was left open.

If you recorded your autumn notes using our haul-out checklist, you already have the right parts in the boot of your car. Here is our six-part spring fitting-out checklist to take your boat from winter cradle to summer berth—and what to log in your Boat Maintenance Log so every refit builds a permanent service history.

1. Hull Below the Waterline (Before the Travelift Arrives)

Once the boat splashes, everything below the waterline becomes a diver’s problem or an expensive mid-summer lift. Check and log these five items on the hard:

Antifouling prep & coat: Wet-sand or scotch-brite the old coating, mask the waterline, and roll an extra coat along high-wear zones (leading edge of keel, rudder, bow forefoot, and propeller turbulence zone). Log the paint brand, colour, batch code, and number of tins in your maintenance log.
Fresh sacrificial anodes (zinc, aluminium, or magnesium): Fit new anodes to the prop shaft, propeller cone, hull plate, bow thruster, and saildrive ring. Never paint over an anode, and check continuity (< 0.2 ohms) with a multimeter between the anode and the metal it protects.
Transducers & speed paddlewheel free-spin test: Peel masking tape off the depth transducer face and flick the speed-log paddlewheel with your finger to make sure bottom paint hasn’t glued it shut.
Propeller & split pin: Polish the blades, grease folding or feathering prop gears with marine grease, and fit a new stainless split pin (cotter pin) or locking tab washer on the prop nut.
Sling-patch touch-up: Have a small roller tray and 150 ml of antifouling ready on launch morning to roll the patches under the cradle pads once the travelift takes the weight.

2. Propulsion, Shaft/Saildrive & Raw-Water System

More launch-day tows are caused by airlocks, forgotten seacocks, or tired impellers than by mechanical failure:

New raw-water impeller installed and logged: Fit a fresh impeller for the new season and keep last year’s intact impeller in a zip-lock bag by the pump as an emergency spare. Log the date, engine hours, and part number.
Raw-water strainer & fuel filters: Clean the strainer basket, lightly silicone-grease the lid O-ring so it cannot suck air, and drain or replace the primary (Racor/CAV) and secondary fuel filters.
Belt tension & pulleys: Check alternator and water-pump belt deflection (10–12 mm at mid-span) and wipe any winter rust film off pulley grooves.
Exercise every seacock before splash: Open and close every underwater valve, set them to launch position, and confirm the engine intake seacock is OPEN (or hang the ignition key directly on the closed seacock handle).

3. Standing & Running Rigging Before Stepping the Mast

Five minutes of rig inspection on the trestles saves five hours in a bosun’s chair later:

Terminals & split pins: Inspect swage and mechanical terminals for hairline cracks or rust staining, and verify every clevis pin has a splayed stainless split pin and tape/Velcro wrap.
Masthead check: Test the steaming light, tricolour, anchor light, deck floodlight, Windex, and VHF antenna coax before the crane hook goes on.
Halyards & sheaves: Spin every masthead and boom sheave by hand, reeve halyards and reefing lines from their winter messenger lines, and check for clutch chafe.

4. Safety Gear & Expiry Dates

Open the safety register page of your logbook and verify every expiry date:

Flares & EPIRB/PLB: Check printed expiry dates on pyrotechnic flares and battery/registration dates on your EPIRB or PLB.
Fire extinguishers & blanket: Confirm all gauges sit in the green zone and invert dry-powder cylinders briefly to loosen compacted powder.
Lifejackets: Check that each inflatable lifejacket’s CO2 cylinder is tight and unpierced, the indicator is green, and the hydrostatic or paper firing bobbin is within date.
Bilge pumps: Lift the electric float switch by hand to verify pump operation, and test the manual cockpit diaphragm pump.

5. Plumbing, Heads & Galley Recommissioning

Flush winter antifreeze & sanitise water tanks: Pump out the freshwater tanks twice to clear pink winterising glycol, sanitise the pipework, and fill with fresh drinking water.
Calorifier & pressure test: Close the water-heater drain valve and bleed air from the hot taps before switching the shore-power immersion breaker on. Leave the pressure pump on for ten minutes with all taps closed—if it cycles on its own, inspect hose clamps and push-fit elbows under pressure for drips.

6. The Splash-Day 15-Minute Inspection in the Slings

When the travelift lowers your boat into the launch well, ask the operator to hold the slings slack for ten minutes while you lift every cabin floorboard and shine a torch on:

Every through-hull and seacock body (wipe dry tissue paper around each joint to spot any weep).
The speed-log transducer housing (the #1 launch-day leak point).
The propeller shaft stuffing box or dripless seal: If you have a carbon/bellows dripless seal, burp the trapped air bubble so water lubricates the seal faces before engaging gear.
Engine start & exhaust water check: Start the engine in neutral and confirm a strong flow of cooling water out the exhaust within ten seconds.

Why Logging Every Spring Refit Pays Off on Survey Day

When you eventually sell your boat, handing a buyer and their marine surveyor a Boat Maintenance Log (/products/boat-maintenance-ownership-log) filled with five years of dated spring fitting-out checklists, engine-hour oil changes, anode replacements, and rigging checks proves the boat was cared for by a methodical owner—and pays for itself many times over on survey day.

Canonical Prices (`Boat Maintenance Log`, 160 pp, 100 gsm cream paper)

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Etsy Wire-O Coil (TaffrailPress): $35.99 US ($39.99 Pers.) · £29.99 UK (£34.99 Pers.) · €44.99 EU (€49.99 Pers.). (Readers in the UK, EU, and Australia can order coil editions on Etsy or Paperback/Hardcover editions on Amazon.)
Amazon KDP: Paperback $21.99 / £19.99 / €22.99 / A$34.99 · Hardcover $32.99 / £25.99 / €31.99.