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Caring for your boat is a real necessity – it is a valuable asset that floats on salt water and is constantly exposed to the elements, such as sun, rain, and hard partying at Palmilla (ha-ha!). Therefore, ensuring that your vessel is in top-knotch condition is crucial to its life.
In these series of articles, I will be going over various maintenace tips and practices to care for your boat.
TIP#4 Check Transom, Tab, and Shaft Zincs and Replace when Necessary
Any time you have two different metals that are physically or electrically connected and immersed in seawater, they become a battery. Some amount of current flows between the two metals. The electrons that make up that current are supplied by one of the metals giving up bits of itself-in the form of metal ions-to the seawater. This is called galvanic corrosion and, left unchecked, it quickly destroys underwater metals.
The most common casualty of galvanic corrosion are the metals located under the boat, such as a bronze or aluminum propeller on a stainless steel shaft, metal struts, rudders, rudder fittings, out drives, stern drives, IPS drives, and engines. The way we counteract galvanic corrosion is to add a third metal, called a sacrificial anode, into the circuit, which is quicker than the other two to give up its electrons. Zinc is used because it has a higher voltage in the water so the current will be more inclined to flow from it than from your propeller. Under normal circumstances, zincs should last at least a year if they are working normally, and much longer if you don’t have any problems. DYMS recommends that you replace all your engine and underwater body zincs at least once a year.
Rusted out drive shaft, propeller, and rudder (need to replace those zincs!)
A,D = RUDDER ZINCS B,C = TRANSOM ZINCS
This series of articles is contributed by Eduardo Hernandez, Business Development Manager at ERH Marine. ERH Marine is the DR’s leading yacht distributor, with a wide portfolio of brands that satisfy all boating needs, be it fish or cruise.
Dominican Yacht Management Service (DYMS – ERH Marine’s sister company), offers services to manage and care for your boat in its entirety. This is particularly useful if you don’t live in the DR, but maintain a vessel at the Marina. All these tips (and those still to come) have been taken from the DYMS Care program, and are performed regularly on the boats under our management.