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Hi gang, Rick Ostler here from Used Pontoon Boats bringing you news and views from the boating industry. BRISTOL, Tenn. – Kelly Weaver pulled her pontoon boat into the dock at Painter Creek Marina and almost immediately started looking for quarters so she could use the marina’s vacuum machine.
She removed some trash – including a few empty beer bottles her brother left behind from the last time he used the boat – and grimaced when she lifted a seat to find a pool of stagnant water. “It’s a nightmare to clean these things up,” said Weaver, who last took out her boat three years ago. “We have to get the carpet cleaned up and finish scrubbing the seats.”
Hundreds of boaters trickled into South Holston’s Marinas
Weaver works as a trucker and last had her boat in Florida where the lakes were too dry to use it. Now back home in the Tri-Cities, she hopes to use it on South Holston Lake whenever her job allows. “I like to come out here every weekend,” Weaver said as she ran the vacuum across her boat’s carpeted floor.
“With beautiful weather, you can’t pass it up.” Hundreds of boaters like Weaver trickled into South Holston’s marinas and docks last week as they prepared for Memorial Day weekend and the official start of the summer boating season.
MTM Marine - Busy servicing customers
Also like Weaver, who had to buy a new battery for her boat and have its carburetor cleaned, boaters visited mechanics like MTM Marine’s Michael Brown, to have certain problems fixed that they couldn’t take care of themselves. “If I hear, ‘My boat’s gotta be ready by Friday’ one more time, I’m gonna throw up,” Brown said Thursday when the front lawn of the repair shop was littered with so many boats it looked like a dealership.
Most of Brown’s customers come in for regular tune-ups, where he cleans the carburetor, changes the oil and installs a new water pump or battery. “These things now-a-days, they’ve got on-board computers and pretty much protect themselves,” he said, adding a motor’s technology prevents most problems. “The only thing you don’t get an alarm for is running out of fuel.”
But fuel, Brown said, is at the root of some more serious problems boaters have with their engines. Because boat motors are contained in sealed spaces and exposed to water, it creates the perfect environment for fuel separation, or when the ethanol in gasoline mixes with water and creates a syrupy liquid.
“Modern fuel with ethanol breaks down in 10 days,” said Brown, who first saw the problem a few years ago when oil companies started using ethanol as a fuel additive. “It looks like brown Jello.”
How to prevent fuel separation in your boat motor
Brown tells his customers they can prevent fuel separation by adding a fuel stabilizer whenever they fill up with gas. People can also prevent the problem by getting fuel-moisture separators like the devices David McCray uses for his houseboat and pontoon boat.
A teacher at Vance Middle School, McCray spends most of his summers at South Holston Lake because he doesn’t have to work during the season. He also visits the lake during the winter and spends at least one weekend a month on the houseboat during the off-season.
“We could probably move out here, stay and be happy,” McCray said while changing spark plugs on a personal watercraft his 17-year-old daughter will use all summer.
About seven miles up the road, Bob and Susie Parkerson were hard at work at Laurel Marina, preparing their recently-purchased houseboat for its inaugural season as their “little cabin on the water.”
“We’re lake people. We’re out here every minutes that we’re off work,” Susie Parkerson said.
The Johnson City, Tenn., couple already keep a boat at the marina. The houseboat, which they bought in September, “was a dream of mine,” Susie said.
Getting it ready was a big job, Bob Parkerson said, and the couple chose to do it in small increments. Last weekend, they washed and waxed the top of the boat and planned to finish the rest later in the week.
“You have to do this once a year,” Bob Parkerson said.
Then his wife chimed in, “It’s not too bad. There are no gutters to clean and no lawn to mow.”
Boat-owners weren’t the only people working hard in preparation for the boating season. Joyce Smartt, manager at Laurel Marina, said she and her staff have been working non-stop for a month to get ready for the annual deluge of customers.
“We’re getting the store stocked, making sure the facility is clean and neat and everything is painted. We’re planting flowers and cleaning the docks,” Smartt said. “And we’ve got new employees to train.”
Smartt said Memorial Day business is double that of other summer weekends, but added July 4th is the busiest weekend of the summer.
She expects this season to be as busy, if not busier, than years past.
“We think people won’t be traveling as much this summer with the gas prices so high, so they’ll stay here and use their boats more,” she said. Thanks to MAC McLEAN and AMY HUNTER, BRISTOL HERALD COURIER. http://www.tricities.com
Used Pontoon Boats, By Rick Ostler
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