Another bird story, but one that's gone to the extreme:
I went to my '86 30+ last night to find birds sitting on each side of both spreaders - and my deck, hardware, new sail cover and dodger liberally splattered with guano. As a matter of fact, my brand new blue sail cover was mostly white/brown, as was my not-so-new blue dodger. What made things more frustrating was that, of the 30-40 boats in the mooring field, mine was the only one to have appeared to have suffered this fate, and the surrounding boats looked clean and had no birds perched on them.
I had this happen several times at the very end of last season when the seagulls and cormorans chase the bluefish in the upper part of Narragansett Bay in RI, where I moor the boat. I'm tucked in a quiet harbor with the shore and shoal nearly surrounding the boat. Each time, I tried fastening mylar strips in various places, to no avail. Last year (unlike this year so far), I was not alone in getting splattered, though I do think I was the worst hit.
Just last Saturday, after seeing that the birds had arrived early this year, I put up an inflatable owl eye below the lower set of spreaders, with a mylar tail. The effect seems to have been negligible. I spent two hours that day cleaning the boat at the dock, and spent about the same amount of time last night at the mooring trying to get at least the bigger crud off.
I have no hard theory as to why my Ericson has been singled out. It has nothing to do, as far as I can tell, with sail cover/dodger color, boat condition, or even the location per se. Last night, though, I did start to build a theory: The only distinguishing factor I could see is that I had the tallest rig and I was the only boat in that end of the mooring field to have a double spreader setup.
I left the boat this morning after raising the owl eye to the top spreader on the masthead flag halyard and raising another flag to the lower spreader using the lower flag halyard. I'll bring my old sail cover this weekend and maybe take down the dodger. I have a fake owl I might bring as well. I've also asked for a mooring closer to the docks (which don't seem to get bird visits at all) or a slip, but the marina doesn't have any available at this time.
Sorry for the long note, but this is getting really frustrating and my beautiful boat - which I take great pride in keeping ship-shape - looks horrendous (at least prior to my two hours of cleaning each time, and the Sunbrella isn't recovering that well anymore either). I saw a small ad in Sailing for Trident Custom Marine Products for a "masthead + spreader guard" and I did see that one of my neighbors had what looked like a strip with spikes on his lone set of spreaders.
Any ideas?
- Desperate
I went to my '86 30+ last night to find birds sitting on each side of both spreaders - and my deck, hardware, new sail cover and dodger liberally splattered with guano. As a matter of fact, my brand new blue sail cover was mostly white/brown, as was my not-so-new blue dodger. What made things more frustrating was that, of the 30-40 boats in the mooring field, mine was the only one to have appeared to have suffered this fate, and the surrounding boats looked clean and had no birds perched on them.
I had this happen several times at the very end of last season when the seagulls and cormorans chase the bluefish in the upper part of Narragansett Bay in RI, where I moor the boat. I'm tucked in a quiet harbor with the shore and shoal nearly surrounding the boat. Each time, I tried fastening mylar strips in various places, to no avail. Last year (unlike this year so far), I was not alone in getting splattered, though I do think I was the worst hit.
Just last Saturday, after seeing that the birds had arrived early this year, I put up an inflatable owl eye below the lower set of spreaders, with a mylar tail. The effect seems to have been negligible. I spent two hours that day cleaning the boat at the dock, and spent about the same amount of time last night at the mooring trying to get at least the bigger crud off.
I have no hard theory as to why my Ericson has been singled out. It has nothing to do, as far as I can tell, with sail cover/dodger color, boat condition, or even the location per se. Last night, though, I did start to build a theory: The only distinguishing factor I could see is that I had the tallest rig and I was the only boat in that end of the mooring field to have a double spreader setup.
I left the boat this morning after raising the owl eye to the top spreader on the masthead flag halyard and raising another flag to the lower spreader using the lower flag halyard. I'll bring my old sail cover this weekend and maybe take down the dodger. I have a fake owl I might bring as well. I've also asked for a mooring closer to the docks (which don't seem to get bird visits at all) or a slip, but the marina doesn't have any available at this time.
Sorry for the long note, but this is getting really frustrating and my beautiful boat - which I take great pride in keeping ship-shape - looks horrendous (at least prior to my two hours of cleaning each time, and the Sunbrella isn't recovering that well anymore either). I saw a small ad in Sailing for Trident Custom Marine Products for a "masthead + spreader guard" and I did see that one of my neighbors had what looked like a strip with spikes on his lone set of spreaders.
Any ideas?
- Desperate