12 Best Boating Tips

Gear & Gadgets

12 Best Boating Tips  

Sometimes you need to MacGyver a solution to a problem out on the water, sometimes recycling feels good, and sometimes it just feels good to be stingy and save money.

In no particular order, here’s a list of our favourite problem solvers, tools and money savers.

1. Liquid Rollers: This is spray-on lubricant for bunk boards by MaryKate that makes the bunks of your trailer as slippery as rollers. Slick!

2. Magnetic Finger: How many tight spots are there in your vessel. This is a glove for one finger with a magnetic tip. Hold a nut in place or get it started in those hard-to-reach spots. Visit www.magneticfinger.com

3. Portasol Butane Soldering Iron: Cordless and hot enough to solder with, it also cuts and heat seals the end of a line to keep it from unraveling.

4. Dorcy 4 LED Flashlight: It’s cheap, bright, tough, waterproof and it floats. LEDs provide intense white light and the stubby size lets you poke it into small spaces.

5. Self-fusing Silicon Tape: Much better than vinyl electrical tape, this tape can fix leaky hoses or keep electrical connections dry. Don’t leave dock without it.

6. If the oil level in your engine keeps getting higher, there’s a good chance water is getting into it, especially if the oil turns a foamy milky brown, it's a definite. Get it serviced right away.

7. Dryer fabric softener sheets can get hard water and mineral stains off windshields and clear plastic panels in tops.

8. Who loves a hot shower on a cold day on the lake? Take a two-gallon yard sprayer and paint it black. Then leave it in the sun and you’ve a cheap hot-water shower.

9. You don't have to buy special marine toilet paper. Cheap single-ply costs less and dissolves quickly.

10. Don’t throw out stiff old nylon line. It can be brought back by soaking it in a half a cup of fabric softener in three gallons of water.

11. Save some more money by cutting the bottom out of a laundry detergent bottle to make a great bailing scoop with a handle.

12. Having trouble figuring out when your rudder is centered? Put a piece of painters tape at the top of the steering wheel. The painters tape won’t leave a gooey mess if you decide to remove it.