Covering up for winter

[taz4]

Hello,

does anyone have any ideas on how to cover my boat for the winter? I was going to buy a tarp and place it over the boom (I was hoping to leave my mast up) and cover the cockpit, do I need to build a frame to keep the snow off? Should I tape up the ports? Any info on what other people do in the lake erie region would be greatly appreciated?

Is also easy to detach the roller furling sail?

Many thanks

taz

 

[Roger Ware]

covering up

Taz - one thing that really bugs me is the sight of expensive sailboats up on the hard in winter storage mode - with their genoas still neatly furled on the furler (there are a couple at my marina right now). Protect your investment and take it down - wait for a completely calm day (this is much better done on the water), unfurl the genoa and free the halyard and drop it. Before furlers this happened every time you sail.

At the very list you will save UV damage and general deterioration from rain, wind, snow and dirt. In a really bad storm your furled sail could come unfurled, shred itself to pieces and pull your boat over to boot.

As far as covers go, there seem to be as many opinions as there are sailors. The aluminum frame heavy canvas custom covers seem to the best, but they are also the most expensive and take the most time to install. And IMHO unless you want to work inside the cover during the winter, they dont really add much value to a tarp properly secured. Watch for pools of water/snow building up, though.

Good luck.

Roger
Kingston, ON

 

[NateHanson]

I don't think tarps are that useful because they quickly become porous after flapping for a month or so, and they easily tear on any chafe-point. Also, any flapping could cause chafe-damage to your boat's finish. A large, heavy-duty tarp costs $20-30.

For the past two seasons I've been shrinkwrapping my boat. I bought a 120'x28' roll of plastic, a thousand feet of strapping, and a roll of shrinkwrap tape on craigslist for about $100 last year, and I need about 16' of it each year for my 26' boat.

I covered it on Sunday (in 30 knot gusts ) and it took about 4 hours for the entire affair. I sleep much better during stormy winter nights knowing that there's very little chance of my boat getting any weather-damage or moisture intrusion. The idea of water getting under hardware, or into crevices on my newly refinished deck, freezing, and opening up problems was a big motivator to get the boat tightly covered.

My only reservation about shrinkwrap is that it's pretty wasteful. That's a lot of plastic in the spring-time. I recycle it, but still, not the best favor I do for the environment each year. Canvas would be better in this regard, but it doesn't make sense for this boat's budget, or the number of years I plan to keep it. A canvas cover would probably cost $1000-2000 dollars, and I spend about $30-50/year with the shrink-wrap (including propane, a zippered door, and a beer when I'm done ).

 

[Bob Robertson]

Hi Taz,

FWIW. Here is how my wife and I cover our boat. We are located near Bayfield Wisconsin. Where there can be a lot of snow or a little depending on the year.
Some boats have been severely damaged during years with particularly heavy snowfall. We have never had a problem. The snow generally slides off our boat.

One of the biggest considerations on how you choose to cover depends on your local winter time temperatures and snow fall.

This is probably to much information, but it works for us in our part of the country.

We previously had a custom, locally built, canvas cover without a frame, but after 11 years it gave up the ghost.

Here are the step by step instructions we use when covering our boat.

1. We wind the two forward halyards in opposite directions around the forestay and tie them down.
2. We support the end of the boom with an inverted T shaped pair of 2 x 4s. There are two holes drilled one midpoint and the other at the upper end of the 2x4 used to support the boom. We run lines from the holes to the cleats just aft of the primary winches for support.
3. We wind the topping lift and the main halyard, in opposite directions, around the aft stay and tie them down.
4. We mount our spinnaker pole at boom height at the mast and forward to the pulpit where we have mounted a 2x2 on the pulpit just forward of the forestay.
5 We remove our lifeline stanchions.
6. We run our dock lines from the end of the boom around the top of the aft pulpit to support the cover. We then put a couple of 2x4 ft. pieces of pegboard on top of the dock lines so the snow can't create pockets.
7. We have a frame that we made out of 1.5 inch PVC. We use PVC T's for the bottom where the frame meets the nonskid. (I can give you more details on the frame if you have an interest.
8. We buy one Grey colored plastic tarp. The tarp we use goes down to the water line.
9. We layout the tarp on the ground. Then we make a cut from the front edge/ center of the tarp that corresponds to the distance from just beyond the bow of the boat to the aft side of the mast. Then we roll the sides of the tarp to the center where the cut is.
10. We then pull the tarp over the stern and bring it to the bow. The cut in the tarp allows us to run each side of the cut portion of the tarp around the mast and to the bow. We then roll and roughly stitch with 5/16" line the cut portion of the tarp just forward of the mast to the bow, We use tarp tape to strengthen the tarp at the mast.
11. We then make cuts to allow the tarp to fit around the shrouds. Our boat has three shrouds on a side. The forward and aft shrouds don't go to the top of the mast, so we take them off to minimize the cuts needed.
12. We unroll the tarp. Make a cut to allow the tarp to fit around the back stay and then tie down the sides and stern portions of the tarp tight to our cradle.
13. We use tarp tape to close up the cuts at the shrouds and the back stay.
14. We roll and roughly stitch the part of the tarp that is hanging down at the bow so that it fits snugly against the curved underside of the bow.

Other considerations:
Our hatches have a setting that allows for some air flow. We set them to allow for the flow.
We make sure that all of our sink drain through hulls are closed. We read an article in Cruising World along time ago that recommended closing them in snowy climates. Why can be another topic for discussion.
We put soft foam around at the forward corners of the stern pulpit and the aft corners of the forward pulpit to insure the cover doesn't get a hole in it.
We also put soft foam over the main reef hooks where the boom meets the mast.

Best of Luck,
Bob

 

[taz4]

Thanks everyone for the advice. The shrink wrap sounds ideal but last weekend I did buy tarps and pvc pipe. Hopefully this should be ok but Im definitely going to look into the shrink wrap idea fopr next year. Is this hard to do, you make it sound easy?

I also took the sails off last weekend (with 30mph winds), the main was fine but I had a lot of trouble with the jib. Thinking back it was pretty stupid, but its done now.

The strangest thing was that hardly any boats are covered yet. Whats the latest you guys cover up?

 

[NateHanson]

Shrink wrapping is easy. You need to buy a $50 propane torch (really more like a flamethrower). There are instructions for the rest online. Search for Dr. Shrink shrinkwrap instructions.

 

[Bob Robertson]

I really like the do it yourself shrink wrap idea. Around here, many of the boatyards won't let us do it ourselves.

A couple of years ago one of the boatyards on the Mississippi had a fire and a sizeable number of the boats on the hard burned. They really pack them in tight.

The fire was caused by someone shrink wrapping his boat. I am guessing he was lacking in experience and probably some common sense, but it screwed things up for the rest of us. When it happened, I was just beginning to look into shrink wrapping myself.

 

[Mindscape]

Cavas Tarps

You might want to consider canvas tarps and modifying them yourself. We have done this with excellent results. I ordered two large tarps from tarps.com and we measured, cut, hemmed them to fit over the frame we made. I think I spent about $500 on the tarps, which should last a long time (over 5 years). The tarps turned out to be awkward but not impossible to work with at the sewing machine. We have a good quality machine with a heavy duty needle, but not anything special. My frame is wood and has worked fine, PVC could work as well, just be aware that canvas is heavy. Overall we found this solution to work well. I've done both the shrink wrap and the poly tarps and prefer this. It only takes a couple of hours to put the frame up and put the tarps on once you get it just the way you want it. (Took us two seasons to get everything the way we wanted it).

 

[Bob Robertson]

That's a really good idea. The canvas cover we had previously lasted 11 years. Thanks.