Service, explained
When to winterize a boat in Delaware
- First frost near 31 October
- Diary runs late September to early January
- Four boats a day, and it shows what is left
Book the date early. Take a late one. Those are two different things, and most people on this coast get them the wrong way round.
The freeze is later than you think
The average first frost at Georgetown, the nearest long-run station to us, falls around 31 October on the 1991 to 2020 climate normals. A frost is not what splits an engine either — a hard freeze with water still in it is.
So there is no engineering reason to lay a boat up in September. Plenty of people do it anyway, and hand back six weeks of the best fishing of the year to a calendar that did not ask them to.
What actually runs out in September is us
We take four boats a day. That is a hard cap, not an ambition — it is what two technicians and a yard can properly do without rushing the part of the job nobody sees.
The diary runs from late September into early January, and the front of it goes first. The booking form shows how many of the four are left on every date, and a day that fills stops being offered. Nothing is oversold and nobody is told later that the date moved.
So when should you book, and for when?
- Book in September. Not because the boat needs it, but because the dates you want are the ones everyone else wants.
- Take a date in late October or November if you still fish. The tuna and the rockfish do not stop for the calendar, and neither does the shop until the diary ends.
- Take an early date if the boat is already done for the year. An engine sitting unused with fuel in it gains nothing by waiting, and you free a late slot for somebody still fishing.
- Do not wait for the first cold snap. That is when the phone rings for everybody at once, and it is the one week we cannot make more days in.
If you leave it too late
Two separate problems arrive together. Water that freezes in a block, a hose or a pump splits it, and that is a repair rather than a service. And the yard is full, so the choice becomes a date that does not suit or a shop that has never seen the boat.
Neither is a good place to be in December, and both are avoidable in September with two minutes on a form.
We will come and get it
If the boat is on a lift, in a slip or at a ramp, we collect it. Our own trucks and trailers run from Lewes down to the Ocean City commercial harbour, so a date in the diary does not have to mean a tow you have to arrange.
Yamaha Marine Service Pro Elite dealer in Selbyville, serving Ocean City and all of Delmarva. 💬 Ask the assistant or call (302) 436-1737.