Today we learned about sacrificial anodes. Well, we already knew about them in theory, but we learned about them for real today.

Last week, as we were looking ahead at getting to the Gulf and introducing Our Dash to salt water for the first time, we started thinking about replacing our anodes. For the uninitiated, boats use sacrificial anodes to prevent galvanic corrosion of underwater metal. Anodes are just chunks of metal of a variety that corroded faster than the metal around it. They are meant to corrode first and be replaced, hence, sacrificial anodes.

We have owned Our Dash for three years and never replaced them. The boat was pulled out every winter and the underwater anodes were in good condition. But going to salt water means new anodes of zinc instead of the normal magnesium for fresh water.

Looking into the process, we learned that there are also sacrificial pencil anodes on the engines. The engines pump water from outside to cool, so there is a constant flow of river/lake/ocean water. Since Our Dash has always been in fresh water, it is not as much of a concern as a salt water boat, but it is still routine maintenance.

We ordered some new zinc anodes to our next marina and installed them today. The process is not difficult except for crawling around the engines finding them all. Our Caterpillar 3208TAs have seven each. We got most of them replaced. The rest will have to wait for someone smaller and more flexible than me. 😀

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