At the time of this writing spring was still weeks away. Yet ever since the Christmas tree came down in mid-January, I have felt increasingly restless, and I am hardly alone. A voice keeps whispering in my ear that the holidays are over and that it’s time to start getting the boat ready for spring launching. I learned a valuable lesson this year about the Greenhouse Effect. I’m not talking about climate change, unless perhaps it is micro-climate change, and the value of creating your own micro-climate inside your own boat. Let me explain. This is my first winter owning an antique wooden powerboat.
After a great summer, I hauled her out, and it was my intention to keep her in a boat storage shed for the winter. No outside exposure, no tarps; I was going to take proper care of my new baby. But the cost was, I discovered, a bit high. She had lived up in Maine for a number of years and spent every winter in a storage shed in the company of other wooden boats, and in mid-coast Maine the cost of indoor unheated storage is much more reasonable than it is here in Rhode Island, where boat storage sheds are less commonplace. Winters in the northeast can be tough on a boat, particularly a wooden one if it is left outside. When I bought my boat up, named the Anna Mary, in Sedgwick in late May, it took four days to bring her home, a trip I completed with three friends (read more about the journey at PropTalk.com).
Once here, my friend Cesar, whose father owns a boat building company, came to my rescue with the offer of an affordable storage space on land his father’s company owned. I had been planning to purchase a 40-foot-long steel-framed tarp-covered shed, but it would need to be assembled and then disassembled in the spring. It would be a lot of work, require several skilled hands to do the job each time, and in the end would be an expensive annual proposition given the labor costs involved. But Cesar would rent the space to me, and for an affordable price his workers would shrinkwrap my boat’s topsides.
I had been given much advice by fellows ‘in the know’ about such things. One friend told me that with the frame and canopy I would have to somehow install active, power ventilation. This would be difficult given that there was no electrical service to the storage area. Then I was told that shrinkwrapping would mean death to my wooden powerboat, for reasons unknown but probably related to moisture. Others told me just the opposite; that shrinkwrapping would be the ‘next best thing’ to indoor shed storage, providing that it was done right.
Having owned and restored wooden boats, both power and sail, in the past, I know that wooden boats require a lot of work to maintain, and that more often than not work deferred results in work multiplied. As such, I did not want to make poor choices or neglect necessary maintenance. I decided to choose the shrinkwrap option.
Once the boat was hauled to the site, blocked, and power washed, Capt. Tom and I winterized the engine before the boat was shrinkwrapped. Cesar’s yard men did fine, quick work of shrinkwrapping the boat from the waterline up and installing a small doorway, zipper-sealed, so that I could access the cockpit from a stepladder set up alongside and tied off to a gunwale cleat for safety. She was now covered, dry, and accessible. And, thanks to the translucent nature of shrinkwrap, she was bright inside on sunny days, bringing the interior temperature up dramatically from below freezing outside to balmy flannel shirt weather inside. It gave Capt. Tom and me the option of changing filters and dozing other engine work in relative comfort, allowing us an extended season for doing inside work.
In dry weather, when I could reasonably expect several days in a row without rain or snow, I left the door flap open so that air could circulate inside and remove moisture and any condensation. I purchased a solar-powered fan, but did not install it during the winter; I plan to rig it in the doorway come spring with the season’s attendant higher humidity. So, what do we do now?
First, we plan. Then we implement. I will make a trip to the paint store to buy what I need, and Capt. Tom and I will finish up our business with the engine, a six-cylinder Ford Lehman diesel. We will need to re-install and check pump impellers and the raw water strainer, grease the stuffing box and possibly re-pack it, and perform an overall interior cleaning with mop and bucket.
In order to paint the boat, topsides, bottom, and interior, the shrinkwrap will need to be cut away and bundled for proper disposal, and we will probably remove that shrinkwrap in stages, in the event that the springtime is especially rainy, because we want to maintain some protection from the rain before it becomes necessary to remove all the covering. This is where the solar fan will become particularly helpful. There is some varnishing to do, and the cabin sole needs painting.
This boat is a tight boat, but even so, I will need to allow a couple of days for her planks to swell after launching. I will probably need to stay aboard for a night or two to monitor how she takes up water. The bilge pumps might be busier than expected, but I don’t know that yet. This, of course, is something that today’s modern powerboater is mostly unfamiliar with!
For the powerboater with a fiberglass boat, key items on the launch preparation checklist include everything to do with the engine and drive train (inboard, outboard, or outdrive), fresh water check-out, i.e., purging antifreeze from the lines and rinsing them out, testing the electrical system, and of course checking out safety equipment and especially the expiration dates on fire extinguishers. It matters! If your motorboat is boarded by the marine police and the dates are expired, you will be in for a hassle. That goes double for key documentation and registration stickers. Have a safe time on the water!
By Capt. Mike Martel