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We had a nasty wind storm the other day. 100mph gusts, snapped 100 year old trees and lots of damage to houses and.......

my cover tore in half. This is year 4 for this cover and it's seen better days. This storm finished it off. I am, however, impressed that it didn't totally shred.
I think the lacing of the grommets under the boat like a giant sneaker is what kept it somewhat in place.
Time to take it off and get ready to splash her anyway.

I used a different material this year, and a different method of wrapping her up.... seemed to fair better than previous years







G

RussMT wrote:We had a nasty wind storm the other day. 100mph gusts, snapped 100 year old trees and lots of damage to houses and.......

my cover tore in half. This is year 4 for this cover and it's seen better days. This storm finished it off. I am, however, impressed that it didn't totally shred.
I think the lacing of the grommets under the boat like a giant sneaker is what kept it somewhat in place.
Time to take it off and get ready to splash her anyway.

I tarp our boat in a manner similar to you. Last winter I had even tied the grommets together under the boat but alas the wind still managed to whip it off a couple of times tearing out all of the grommets. This year I tarped it as usual but actually stitched the bow end (aimed west) closed with heavy twine to keep the wind from inflating the tarp. This year the tarp stayed on all winter.

Have the Sail Warehouse cover for about a year now. It's blowing up in the 60-70s right now. The cover doesn't care.
It can be driven down the freeway in this wind anyway. It looks like the day I received it in the mail (brand new)
This cover is pricey, but it is great! Very easy to install/remove too.

Best Breezes,
Steve K.
Mac 26D "Three Sheets"

Russ, what is that tubing you have on your decks? If to hold the cover up why is some of it arched 'horizontally' like a rail more than vertically to arch the cover so rain doesn't pool? And how is it attached to the deck?

Concur, the Sail Warehouse $800 fitted cover seems very well made and designed for high winds. Pricey but it's also fire and forget.

tbowers wrote:Russ, what is that tubing you have on your decks? If to hold the cover up why is some of it arched 'horizontally' like a rail more than vertically to arch the cover so rain doesn't pool? And how is it attached to the deck?

It's PVC pipe from Lowes. Bend to a U shape. I attach it with duct tape. First I wrap the stanchion with a paper towel so it doesn't stick, then duct tape and tape to the pipe. You can get very creative with duct tape. They key is to wrap things with paper towels so it doesn't stick and can be removed with a knife at the end of the season. Pretty simple and has worked for years.
This is the 4th or 5th year for the cover and it had a few worn spots and with a day of 100mph gusts it tore in half. Cheap 20x30 tarp. I'll get a new one next year.

--Russ

My cheap-o Harbor Freight tarp has held up since I got the boat in 2011. It's showing a little wear at the lifeline stanchion loops where the gates connect at the cockpit, but that's about it. My fault for not softening those hard loops.

Hard to see in the pics, but I remove the lifelines so the snow can slide off, which it does most of the time. I also clean some snow off when I'm raking the roof, but that's just because I'm already there and doing it.

Port side:



Starboard side:



Not bad for the minimal amount of cash I laid out for it, plus a few 2x3's.

Tomfoolery wrote:Hard to see in the pics, but I remove the lifelines so the snow can slide off, which it does most of the time. I also clean some snow off when I'm raking the roof, but that's just because I'm already there and doing it.

Doh!

That's so simple. So simple it's brilliant! I'm doing that next time. My lifelines even have quick shackles.

Thanks, but not that brilliant really. I just stood there last year, staring at the pockets of snow that were caught, and realized what was 'catching' that snow. The lifelines at the cockpit. So I took 'em off*. You can see in the pic where the bottom of the vee is where the goal post is. Some snow still does get held there, and if the tarp bags too much, stays there, but I could probably fix that with either a little more bracing**, or some ballast on the tarp ties to keep it from getting too baggy.

The front lifelines taper to the deck anyway, so a natural vee is formed, and very little snow accumulates there. Looking more closely at my own photo (below), it appears that there would be even less potential for bagging if I cut those two loose at the bow rail, too.

* I have a pair of brandy-new gates with actual pelican hooks from BWY that Santa brung me a couple of months back, to be installed soon. Time to get rid of the cobbled bit of dross the PO installed.
** The only bracing I use is a 'tent' of 2x3s over the cabin roof, with a strut at the mast step to support the middle of the mast.

Tomfoolery wrote: Hard to see in the pics, but I remove the lifelines so the snow can slide off, which it does most of the time.

Without the lifelines, won't the stanchions simply poke right though the tarp?


Maybe it's because of the harsh winters here in the NorthEast (of the Mississauga/Etobicoke lake shore, that is ) but I leave my lifelines on and still have to cover my stanchion heads in blocks of styro so that they do not wear through the tarp - which they do anyway. On our lot at the club, they do get exposed to quite a bit of whipping wind for Canada's 6 month winter.

If you look at the pic right above, you can see a 2x4 spanning the lifeline stanchions on each side, with the ribs screwed to them. Those 2x3's have a blind hole bored into them for the tops of the stanchions. Ribs are also screwed to a backbone on the mast. Snow accumulates on that roof, but it doesn't matter, and for the most part either blows off, or slides off.

The stern used to accumulate a lot of snow, but doesn't now with the gates removed. And yes, that stern rail has a loop that wears a hole in the tarp, which I addressed in my first post on this. I have to soften that corner up with some rags next winter.

The bow has no problems at all. Snow accumulation is not a problem per se - too much causes the tarp to bag, trapping more snow, and so on. So if it gets too deep up there, I just rake it off. I only did that once this season (usually never), because we had a LOT of snow in a relatively short time span, but it slid right off with the roof rake and all its extensions. I was doing the in-laws' roof anyway.

I got hold of an old advertising sign 35ft x 18
very heavy and lasted 3 years but I don't think it had UV block in it and had become brittle , this winter it got shredded

might actually buy something for next winter

Aafter doing the pvc pipe frame and plastic 30'x15' tarp, we add a blue canvas deck tarp - then we put a 30' RV cover on top of everything and wrap up.
This holds everything in place and does not allow wind to get a hold of anything, also protects the hull from UV exposure.