G’day Mates
You may ask, “so now what do we do with the boats now that winter is here?”
If you take them to the top of a snow covered hill, push off and jump on, they make a great bobsled!
To help your boat survive the winter, I recommend:
- First remove all standing rigging, side stay adjusters, bridle wires, trapeze wires with their bungies and carefully coil them up so they don’t have any kinks and store them in a dry area. Release the tension on the diamond wires. Remove the downhaul swivel cleats from the mast. To keep your halyards and sheets in good shape, remove the main, jib and spinnaker halyard, as well as the main sheet, jib sheet, the traveler line and coil them up and place in a dry storage area.
- A good thing for your sails is to release the batten tension, roll them up with extra care avoiding creasing the material and also be sure they are kept in a dry place.
- The rudders, daggers and boom get stored in a dry flat area. (The key word here is DRY storage of the boat components!) I remove the trailer tie downs and store them.
- Drain any water from the Hulls.
- If your boat sits on rollers place a piece of 3/8 or 1/2 inch plywood cut about 18″ x 12″ placed between the hull and the roller to support the hulls, if you have cradles you’ll be ok. (I’ve seen boats crushed down on the rollers as the weight of the snow piles up on the hulls and trampoline over the winter.)
- To protect the trampoline, drape a 12′ x 12′ tarp up over the mast, over the trampoline in kind of a tent configuration and secure tightly at each corner to help shedd the snow. I like to sweep the snow off the boat after each big snow storm.
- One last thing I jack up the trailer an inch or two and place blocks under the axel to keep the tires from getting flat spots and cracks when sitting for several months.
Doing this keeps boats happy and they’ll reward you nicely next spring when you plunk’em in the water!
Sincerely,
Brett Bingham
Icarus Sports USA
www.IcarusSportsUSA.com
801-815-2521
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