Sailboat Winterization - Did I destroy our water makers membrane?

I've made a couple trips to the boat over the last few weeks attempting to get it ready for its long winter nap. The first trip I was able to get the two head sails off, take our VHF radio and AIS in to a Garmin dealer to get reprogramed with the boats new name, drain the water system, and might have finally got our generator working. After getting back home I started thinking about our water maker and the fact that it does a fresh water flush every week to keep water moving though it with the hopes of keeping things from growing in the membrane. Well I had drained the fresh water how was that going to work? Seems I should have pickled or really just run the pink antifreeze through it before draining it to store it properly per the manual. About three weeks later I made it back to the boat with antifreeze in hand only to realize I didn't have the right sized valves to get the antifreeze pumped into it. Ugh.. I gave up and asked the yard to take care of it for me. Hopefully they can figure it out. But I'm guessing it will sit for at least another week before they get to it. Something tells me I just ruined a $400 membrane :(

While there the second time I was able to get the main sail off by myself. The thing is a little over a 1000sqft and I'm guessing around 200lbs. It was not fun and next time I'm going to make sure the boy is with me to help manage that monster. Seems when I started asking around the yard for tips on how to manage it everyone just laughed at me telling me things like they had not taken theirs off the boat for nine years and they had four people to help, others told me its one of those things they just pay a loft to do. Well lesson learned. I think next season I may do just that and open up the check book but I do intend to put it back on this spring just to ensure I know how it all goes back together and how to hook up the various reefing lines that run though the sail. I'm sure I'll screw up that a few times in the process of raising and lowering the sail to figure out the correct way to get the reefing lines working. I also took the stack pack off to get some repairs done. I'm guessing it's about 40% used up and really hoping they don't tell me I need to have a new one made.

It had been about three weeks since I dropped off the electronics so I decided to check in on that process. Seems they were able to quickly reprogram the AIS but unfortunately the VHF had to be sent into Garmin to be reset and still had not made its way back. So I picked up the AIS and reinstalled that. I'm happy to report that it's working and can now broadcast the boats new name.

I spent rest of the next day pumping antifreeze into the boats water system. I guessed I would need about 10 gallons. Turns out it's more like 14 which meant another trip to the store. Yet another process I would not recommend doing alone as the water pumps are in the front locker on the boat and all of the water valves are somewhere else inside the boat so one is always running back and fourth to swap empty gallon jugs. I think this might also be a process for the yard to do next year with their big 50 gallon drum of antifreeze that they pump into the boat via a water line somewhere. Bottom line I was able to get all three engines winterized and the water system leaving only the AC units and water maker for another day.

Every project I've done these last two visits has reminded me that one person can technically do all this stuff but it's a heck of a lot easier with two people. Our past boats were all much easier to do this on by myself. Heck while it was challenging I could manage the mainsail by myself on our 47 mono. Seems the sail on this boat is at least twice as thick making it way heavier and probably significantly bigger as well.

Unfortunately only the two head sails, stack pack, food and other items I needed to take home fit in the back of my truck so I'll have to grab the mainsail next time. I've been told the boat should be coming out of the water sometime this week. I suspect I'll be lucky if it comes out before the end of November but we will see. For the moment I'm looking forward to at least one more 17hr round trip back to the boat this month.