Aluminum Boat in Saltwater

[JET4]

Looking to buy a new boat. The boat will be 14'-16' jon boat. Fish by myself. I've owned one aluminum boat and 4 fiberglass boats in my life. Most of my fishing will be in freshwater lakes with 10 HP restriction. I do live very close to saltwater and from time to time I'll go saltwater. My question is should I worry about the saltwater on a aluminum boat ? Probably be (90-95% freshwater, 5-10% saltwater. Freshwater just bring the boat home and park it. Saltwater i'll spray it with a hose and call it something.Thanks for your help.

[EWS]

Nope. There are lots of multimillion dollar aluminum yatchs circling the globe, much less the thousands of smaller aluminum boats.

[sinkermaker]

The only thing I would do is flush the motor after salt water use

[trypman1]

No problem at all, Like Sinkermaker said flush out the motor, after every salt water use!

[Quackrstackr]

Flush the motor and if you wire it or buy one with wiring in it, make sure it is marine rated. It has to be tinned otherwise with saltwater exposure you will have electrical problems in no time flat with regular copper stranded. That includes the trailer.

[Slab]

I heard if it's a riveted aluminum boat you should not put it in salt. Any truth to that guys?

[JET4]

I heard if it's a riveted aluminum boat you should not put it in salt. Any truth to that guys?

Excellent question, I haven't heard that. Would love to know that.

["G"]

I was a aircraft mechanic in the Navy...I was in a P3 squadron...our mission was anti submarine patrol....we flew low over the ocean....salt was in the air......The vanes and stators in the turbo prop jet engines had to be checked regularly for corrosion caused by salt...The air frame and fuselodge skin was all aluminum and the skin was rivited on with thousands of aluminum rivits...the air craft was painted...but corrosion from salt around all those rivits kept the aviation metal smiths constantly busy sanding, replaceing rivits, and touch up painting.

[Slab]

Good to know next time I go fishing with an aluminum turbo prop riveted airplane.

J/K - Great info. Salt is a corrosive, bad on just about everything. I'm also sure planes have a much tighter tolerance so I guess we still need to know if a riveted boat gonna sink! lol

Thank you for your service.

[Quackrstackr]

Aluminum forms its own impenetrable protective oxide layer as soon as it is exposed preventing further corrosion. I suspect the constant dynamic motion between the rivets and the hull grinding off this oxide layer between the two actually acts as a sort of fast acting corrosion. Layer turns to oxide, gets ground off, has to form another layer of oxide, gets ground off, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.