How to Prep Your Boat for a Busy Summer Weekend

The drain plug is in the boat. Probably. Let's make sure!

Every boat owner has a version of the story.

Maybe it's the drain plug. Maybe it's the bow line you left on the dock. Maybe it's the moment you got to the ramp, got the boat in the water, pulled the truck around, and realized the plug was still sitting on the dashboard where you put it so you'd "definitely remember it."

Maybe it's all three. Maybe it happened on the same trip. Maybe that trip was last summer and you've told the story enough times that it's funny now but it was not funny then, standing at the ramp in front of six other boats and a line of people who all had somewhere to be.

The Friday night scramble is one of the great traditions of Michigan boating. The rush, the checklist you're running in your head while also driving, the text thread where someone asks "did anyone grab the ice?" when you're already twenty minutes down the road.

It doesn't have to be like this.

Here's the checklist that makes Saturday morning go smoothly — the one you run on Friday evening, in your driveway, while you still have time to fix anything you find.

The Non-Negotiables

These are the things that will ruin your day if they're wrong. Not inconvenience your day. Ruin it.

The drain plug. Find it. Install it.

We're starting here because we have to start here.

The drain plug lives in a specific place on your boat. You know where it is. You have a system. The system works until it doesn't, which is always at the boat ramp, always in front of people, always on the weekend you were running late.

Find the plug before you leave home. Install it before you leave home. If your system is "I put it on the dashboard so I remember," your system has already failed you at least once.

The new system is: it goes in the boat in the driveway, the night before, and doesn't come out until you're winterizing.

Some people zip-tie a reminder note to their keys. Some people put a sticky note on the steering wheel. Some people text themselves. Whatever it takes. Just not the dashboard.

Safety equipment — check the whole list.

Life jackets for every person on the boat, including any kids or guests who weren't on last week's trip. Check that every jacket is the right size, the buckles work, and there are no tears or compression issues with the foam.

Beyond the jackets: fire extinguisher within its service date, throwable flotation device, horn or whistle, flares if you're on open water, navigation lights if there's any chance you'll be out past sunset. This is the legal minimum and also the common sense minimum.

Check it every time. Not because you think something will go wrong. Because checking it every time is the habit that means you're covered on the one time something does.

Fuel.

Full tank before you leave the driveway. Not "probably enough." Full.

Running low on fuel on Lake St. Clair on a Saturday afternoon is an experience that involves a lot of waiting and a tow that costs more than a full tank of gas and a level of personal embarrassment that lingers through at least two subsequent boating seasons. Fill up the night before. Bring a spare fuel can if you're planning a long day.

Also: if your fuel has been sitting for more than a month, check the quality and consider whether you need stabilizer or a fresh fill. Old fuel causes starting problems at exactly the moment you don't want starting problems.

Battery.

Crank the engine in the driveway before you leave. Not at the ramp. In the driveway, where if it doesn't start you have time to troubleshoot instead of an audience.

If the battery is more than three or four years old and you had any hesitation starting it last time, put a trickle charger on it overnight. If it's been sitting since last fall without being maintained, charge it fully before you trust it with your whole Saturday. A battery that starts the boat in cold April weather may not start it on a hot August afternoon after it's been sitting in the sun at the ramp for an hour.

Check the terminals while you're at it. Corrosion is quiet and patient and will absolutely wait until the worst possible moment.

Engine flush and visual check.

If it's been more than a couple of weeks since the boat ran — flush the engine before this trip, not after. Look for anything that changed since last time: new weeds wrapped around the prop, oil spots under the engine, coolant that looks wrong, anything that didn't used to make that sound.

You know your boat. Trust that knowledge. A five-minute look-over in the driveway has saved more weekends than any amount of roadside troubleshooting.

The Systems

These things probably work.

Check them anyway.

Bilge pump.

Click it on. Listen for it. Make sure it runs. The bilge pump is the thing you never think about until you need it, and when you need it you need it to work immediately without any troubleshooting steps. Test it before you leave. Takes fifteen seconds.

Navigation lights.

If there is any chance you'll be on the water after sunset — and on a long summer day with good company there absolutely will be — test every light before you leave. Bow light, stern light, the works. A burned out bulb is a quick fix at home and a Coast Guard conversation on the water.

Steering and throttle.

Sit in the seat, start the engine, and physically move through the full range of steering and throttle while you're still in the driveway. You're feeling for anything stiff, sticky, or inconsistent that wasn't there last time. Steering that's slightly off in the driveway is steering that's noticeably off at speed, and noticeably off at speed on a busy summer lake is not where you want to be discovering it.

Trim and tilt.

Run it up and down while you're at it. Makes sure the hydraulic system is working, makes sure you have full range of motion, and confirms you're not going to get to the ramp and find out you can't trim up enough to load the boat.

The Boat Itself

Trailer — tires, lights, and the hitch.

Walk around the trailer before you hitch up. Tire pressure, visible wear, anything that looks different than last time. Plug in the lights and check brake lights and turn signals — do this while you can still see them, not while someone else is trying to tell you from behind the truck at a busy intersection.

Hitch pin in, safety chains crossed and connected, breakaway cable attached if your trailer has one. Do the full connection in order every single time so that "full connection in order" becomes the automatic routine and skipping a step becomes the thing that feels wrong.

The cooler situation.

Ice, food, drinks — loaded the night before if possible so Friday morning isn't a scramble.

The cooler that gets packed at 6 a.m. Saturday while someone is still half asleep is the cooler that forgets something important.

Put the sunscreen in the cooler bag. You will not remember the sunscreen otherwise. This is a fact about sunscreen and human nature that has been proven repeatedly.

Dock lines and fenders.

At least two dock lines, long enough to actually reach a cleat with some slack to work with. Fenders that aren't cracked or deflated. If you're going anywhere with other boats, anywhere with a fuel dock, anywhere you'll be tying up for lunch — you need both and they need to work.

This is the gear that sits in the boat all season and gets ignored until you're trying to tie up in a crosswind in front of a full marina and one of the dock lines is six inches too short and the fender falls in the water. Check it now.

The stuff people forget.

A dry bag with your phone, wallet, and keys. Sunscreen — see above. A hat, because you'll think you don't need one and you will need one. A towel per person. The anchor, because there will be a sandbar or a swimming spot and you'll want to stop. The boat registration and your boating license accessible and not buried somewhere in the glove box under three years of receipts and a koozie from somewhere you don't remember.

The Morning Of

You did the checklist. Everything is ready.

Here's what Saturday morning looks like now:

Wake up. Load the cooler. Hitch the trailer — you already know it's right because you checked it last night. Drive to the ramp.

One More Thing

The single biggest cause of the Friday night scramble isn't forgetting things. It's not having enough time to do it right.

When your boat is stored close to home, that window gets a lot bigger. You can swing by Thursday evening to load what you need. Weekends come and go too fast to waste time on the details, save the details for Thursday! But DO the details, don't skip them. You can do the walk-around without rushing. You can leave Saturday morning with enough time to hit the ramp before the crowd instead of arriving with the crowd because you were still loading when you should have been driving.

Summer is almost here! I know we are ready!

What's the thing you always forget? The one that shows up on every trip no matter how many times you tell yourself you'll remember it? Drop it in the comments.