[landlbaslee]

BoatUS receives complaints every year from boat owners who thought the marina would winterize their boat but the marina didn't do it or didn't know it was supposed to.

[morgans]

Heaters are poor substitutes for proper winterizing and can start a fire. Photo: GEICO | BoatUS Marine Insurance here

[HarryS]

The owner of a 24-foot Bayliner in Portland, Oregon, never got around to winterizing his twin gas engines and instead put a heater in the engine compartment. Like a lot of other people, the owner probably didn't think about the fact that power outages most often occur right when you need electricity most — when the worst winter weather hits. An ice storm came through just before Christmas, downing power lines and cutting off power to the heater long enough to freeze the water in the blocks. [links]

[L29Ah]

1. Texas
2. New York
3. New Jersey (tie)
3. Maryland (tie)
5. Virginia
6. Mississippi
7. Georgia
8. North Carolina
9. Washington
10. South Carolina

[mycroftholmes]

If you live in a temperate state and aren't sure if you should winterize, look at the list below showing which states have the most freeze damage insurance claims over the last 10 years. More than half of them would be considered warm-weather states, and only Hawaii routinely has no claims. The most freeze claims over the past decade were in 2018 because of a severe winter that included snow in Las Vegas, record cold for Los Angeles, and at one point, nearly half the U.S. experiencing temperatures below freezing. There is no way to accurately predict how cold winter will be in your state, so don't get caught off guard this year.

[iamjerrytorres]

Most of those who don't winterize, or don't winterize properly, only find out something is wrong in the spring when brown froth starts spewing through a crack in the side of the engine block, or what looks like chocolate milk appears on the dipstick. Repairing freeze damage takes time and all too often involves a complete engine replacement. By the time the boat is in working order, a good part of the boating season will have been lost. Winterizing most boats takes from an hour to a day. So unless your boating takes places in Hawaii, we recommend winterizing your boat if there will be any time that it could possibly freeze, to minimize the chances that a sudden freeze will put it out of commission next season.