As soon as you become involved with moored boats you start to hear about electrolysis. The correct name for electrolysis is galvanic corrosion. In 1780 Luigi Galvani was the first to notice that when two dissimilar metals were in contact with each other, in a liquid that is capable of conducting electricity then an electric current is generated, and corrosion of one or both metals occurred.

Owners of moored boats often only become aware of electrolysis when they have their boat slipped to clean and anti-foul, and to their horror find the props, stern drive legs, through hull metal fittings etc, full of holes and virtually eaten away. This is bad enough but usually it is much worse, because inside exhaust manifolds, pumps, heat exchangers and even engine blocks there will be similar severe damage that is hidden from sight, and may only become evident when a total breakdown occurs at sea.

Electrolysis is much worse when accelerated by electrical power leakage coming through the shore power supply at Marinas. The damage from electrolysis can be partly controlled by the use of sacrificial anodes attached to strategic locations on your boat, and protection systems connected to the Marina power supply, but the only way to completely prevent you seeing metal parts of your boat just disappearing before your eyes due to electrolysis, is to take the boat out of the electricity conducting water and store it on a HydroHoist Boat Lift.



This is the awful damage caused to fibre glass hulls when left immersed for long periods. Water gradually finds its way through and beneath the gel coat causing large blisters and delamination of the fibre glass. The hull starts to weep water through to the inside and it becomes necessary to bale or run the bilge pump frequently to keep the boat afloat. The gel coat is in fact the only layer that keeps water outside, and its is essential to maintain it in good condition. The repair of a hull badly affected by osmosis is usually very expensive, and often simply not viable, a bit like a rusted out car body.

Ironically, the first damage to the gel coat on a brand new boat occurs when the surface is sanded and etched to give a bond for coats of anti-foul paint. Each time the boat is slipped, high pressure cleaned, scraped and sanded to apply more anti-foul, a bit more damage occurs to the gel coat, and the day when osmosis becomes evident is brought closer. Storing your vessel above water on a Hydro Hoist Boat Lift is the single best way to avoid osmosis and gel coat damage and completely negates the need for anti-fouling coatings.



Without a coating of anti-foul paint, marine organisms including barnacles attach themselves firmly to the underside of a moored boat, and create such drag when the boat is underway that fuel consumption can be doubled and planing hulls will sometimes be unable to reach planing speed at all.

The need to regularly slip, pressure clean, scrape, sand and apply anti-foul is entirely eliminated when you store the boat above the water on a HydroHoist Boat Lift installed by Above Water Boat Mooring Systems.

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