Zinc anodes for salt water

[Weil Thing]

I'm using my boat almost exclusively in salt water, though it never sits in the water even for a night. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about whether zincs would be a) necessary, b) a good idea, or c) a waste of time to install. Also, besides on the shaft, rudder, and trim tab, any where else? I have the freshwater cooling system and the saltwater flush system installed. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[FIC]

If your not leaving it in the water then I dont see a problem , I do reccomend that you have ground straps added from your rudder arm to rudder port , port to steering support bracket, support bracket to steering cable clamp and bracket to engine ground. All are boats here in fla, we have equipped with the grounds and havent had a steering cable failure , but the ones that didnt have the grounds all had failure in under 100hrs. The principles of the ground cables is the same as out drives , they run cables from section to section to keep the electrollsis from erroding the metal.

[mtnsmith]

Alright, another saltwater user!!! I installed the grounding straps that FIC is talking about, as he is my dealer, and though I have not noticed any significant positive or negative, I already have surpassed the hours that the first steering cable failed so I like to think it is helping As far as installing anodes, if it is not sitting in the water, not needed, even sitting for a couple days would do no harm. I have actually heard of the anodes causing a vibration felt pretty much only in the steering wheel in the MC's that have them on the rudder. On a big boat the steering system would pretty much absorb any sort of vibration, but on a smaller boat such as ours I guess the steering system just can't absorb any sort of disturbance on the rudder surface.

[tri_slarson]

What about the trailers?

What are you doing about your trailers? I have been sticking to freshwater mainly because I'm scared of my trailer disintegrating in a few years.
My last boat was on an Aluminum trailer, used exclusively in saltwater and looked as good as new after eight years when I sold it to get my Tige.

[mtnsmith]

My trailer is disintegrating, I plan to get an aluminum trailer this year for it. I did not order my boat otherwise I would have bought an aluminum from the beginning.

[Weil Thing]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Tri, my dealer (Gunnell's Marine, Greenwood, SC) sold me the boat without the trailer, and I had an aluminum one made for it. The boat sits a little high on the trailer, but I'm hoping to not ever have to replace it!

[mtnsmith]

You have the loadmaster trailer right? I think I remember talking about it before, so far you like how it works? Since I am fairly close to them that's who I was thinking of getting one from since they are a little more affordable than some of the others.

[Weil Thing]

I got the Fastload trailer. The trailer itself is solid, but they were in a hurry when they assembled it, so one of the clearance lights was hooked up wrong, but easy to fix. One of my turn signals is out now, but that could easily be my old truck. Solid, solid trailer. Only complaint is that the boat does sit up high, but you just climb on the fender and you're in, so no big deal.