Wintering in NY State

Thinking about the Great Loop only because I want to go back to NY State's Hudson Valley and the Erie Canal System.
NY State will take me most of the summer if not all of it and the following year and so I will have to winter-over up there.
So, if I wanted to winter-over on the canal system, can I just simply haul-out and drain the water systems on my boat or do I have to stretch wrap for additional protection while I live in a winter apartment or can I actually live aboard?
I lived in the Hudson Valley while essentially a non-boater so I know how cold it gets further north, not to mention the snow.
What do you northerners do?

We have an old, relatively simple Carver 3207 in South Dakota where it can drop to below zero for two or three weeks at a time some winters. Even with that simple boat winter storage takes quite a bit of work. I would think your Mainship 36 would be simlar. We drain two air conditioners, the water heater, two bathrooms (heads), the galley, the generator, winterize both engines, and disconnect the battery cables (all eight of them). We don't shrink wrap, awfully expensive, but we do have a winter frame and tarp over it. Freeze and thaw cycles in the fall and spring are the hardest on the boat, water dripping in somewhere, freezing, breaking something, and then running out. We take all removeable electronics off the bridge, and all the bedding and linens out of the berths and the heads. It ends up filling a utility trailer. And then we drive down to the marina and check the boat about once a month during the winter. I know some owners never do that though, they never check on their boats ever, until splash in the spring.

Oh, and we snap on the engine louver covers. Drain the strainers, pump out the holding tanks. Antifreeze in the water tanks. Stabilizer in the fuel tanks. Come to think of it, why the heck do we live here!??

There are very few who live aboard during the winter. You would be relying upon constant vigilance to make sure the bubblers and heaters are operating. It is done, but few do so.

If you are storing the boat you need to winterize using the RV antifreeze in every engine, ac unit and boat's water lines. With our Krogen 42 we used 40 gallons of antifreeze each year as we also put antifreeze in the toilets, holding tanks and bilges.

KT

Do you store the boat on your own property ro do you leave it in a boat yard?

Greetings,
Mr. TB. Winter Harbor - Warm Winter Boat Storage

Boat yard about an hour away from home. We've done this for three years now, three winters, and it always amazes me how hard the winters are on boats. Rails bend if the tarp wasn't tight enough and an ice dam or pocket built up on the cover, somehow everything gets covered with dust or dirt on the flybridge and decks, no matter how well covered it might be. Takes us at least a couple days just to get everything squared away when it comes out of winter hibernation -- and I'm just talking about miscellaneous stuff and cleaning, we have the marina handle all the mechanicals. I'm talking about all the bedding, priming and getting the AC running, electronics, hosing off the decks and deck carpet and scrubbing the life ring and the on-deck ice chest/bench, the upper and lower biminis, making sure the horns work, fixing every little thing that magically stops working during a five month deep freeze. One winter for whatever reason (to this day we still have no idea why) the starboard windshield shattered into a million pieces. Tempered glass, 54" wide, 42 inches high, just exploded everywhere. Ugh, winter is brutal on boats. But all that aside, about 400 slip holders do it every year at our marina. Just becomes part of the process eventually.

RTF: Thanks, I'll check out the prices after my meds.
Wonder if it's affordable?

KT: Thanks for the warning. I may have to come up with a different strategy. Maybe Ill just spend the winter in the lower Hudson and explore by car. Then the following spring just head straight up to the Erie canal.

Not sure if it would take you all summer for the Hudson and the
Erie we spent the past month going from New York to Buffalo which included multiple stops at many places and certainly not too many miles each day.
We certainly did not feel rushed at all as there are only certain locations you can stop at on both segments but to each their own.
There are better places to deal with winter once into the Great Lakes.

GW

Where would you winter over on the Great lakes?

BTW, the reason I want to spend some time in NY State is because it is arguably one of the prettiest and historically interesting states in the country. West Point, Letchworth State Park, the Adirondacks, Catskills, Finger Lakes for starters not to mention all of the Revolutionary Forts and cantonments and other historic battle sites.
When I was younger, I had camped most of the state and lived in the Hudson valley for 6 years. The admiral has never been there before.
When we plan on staying somewhere for a month or more, I fly back and get my van. then we become tourists.

I was born and raised in the Finger Lakes. Fran Barrett on the Seneca Canal has a great boatyard and treats each boat on the hard as his own. His house is in the boatyard. My parents have kept their boats there in the winter for 35 years without issue.

I recommend heated storage. It saves the costs of preparing the boat to survive ice cold, and then putting it back together in the spring. So overall, it is not really that much more expensive.

RTF is right on. Winter Harbor, in Brewerton, NY on the Erie Canal, is the best place for winter storage in a large surrounding area. As they say, we serve "finicky boaters." I left Great Laker there last winter and she came out just exactly as she went in, and cleaner on the outside. The owner and staff are great to work with.

You can do the Hudson and the Erie Canal to Brewerton comfortably in a month. Consider improving your trip by continuing up the Hudson through Lake Champlain to Montreal, taking the Ottawa River to Ottawa, going down the Rideau Canal to Kingston, crossing Lake Ontario to Oswego, and the Oswego Canal to the Eire Canal to Brewerton. This triangle loop is orders of magnitude better than just following the Erie Canal from Waterford to Brewerton.

I've been thinking more of leaving her up there over the winter. We really enjoyed the cruising up there. The trip up, not so much.

There are many sheds in the Alexandia Bay area also that you could check out for winter storage. Just north of Watertown , N.Y. for airlines.

I looked at winter harbor 2 years ago. It was MUCH cheaper for me to cruise the boat back to my home state of Ct and winter store, then cruise back up the Hudson.