[C320-list] Winter Covering

[Andrew Santangelo]

Scott,

I have no stress cracks at all around my boarding ladder - either  
where the pads make contact or the attachment points.  Everything  
looks fine.

Now admittedly a person climbing the ladder is heavier than a person  
in the water hanging on the bottom rung of the ladder.  However, this  
is not so on the upper rungs.  Bear in mind though I put a ladder next  
to the boarding ladder and I step onto the boarding ladder near the  
top rungs, not the bottom rung.  Now if one boards right onto the  
lowest rung directly all the time on the hard I can see some problems,  
especially with the added forces of struggling to get onto the  
boarding ladder from the lowest rung.

Either way, the ladder next to the boarding ladder and the zipper  
opening at the transom has worked well for me.

Other items about getting a pre-made cover: you have to find a place  
to store it (which I find to be a pain and you might have associated  
summer storage costs), and if you hire someone to place the cover on  
the boat for you the savings is reduced.

And the plastic cover is nice for heating things under the cover in  
the sun.  Plus the snow and ice melt quicker off the plastic vs. a  
canvas cover.  With the canvas and build up of ice and snow there is a  
potential to bend and break things.  I have seen this happen in  
Michigan.  Do not forget, you will also have repair costs associated  
with the canvas, especially after 10 years and this is not cheap.

And you can recycle the plastic.

Best Regards,
Andrew

C320 "Dawn Treader"
#333
Pier 39 SFO


On Nov 1, 2009, at 11:19 AM, Scott Thompson wrote:

> I can't argue with anything below except the decision to store the  
> boat with boarding ladder down.  My impression is that it is  
> extremely hard on the boat to use the boarding ladder to climb on  
> board when the boat is on the hard.  I have numerous stress cracks  
> in my transom that I attribute to this practice.  For the past few  
> years I have opted instead for removing the boarding ladder  
> altogether so that no one is tempted to use it this way.  Removing  
> it also leaves the transom open to make it easy to get onboard or  
> off.  I just use a small folding stepladder when I visit the boat.   
> This works out nicely.
>
> BTW, I ran the numbers on getting a custom cover made for my boat by  
> a local canvas shop in Annapolis, comparing this to shrink-wrap  
> cost.  My impression is that you need to get a good ten years out of  
> the cover, not counting any installation costs, to get ahead of  
> annual shrinkwrap costs.  Of course the cover is a lot more  
> environmentally friendly.
>
> Scott Thompson
> Surprise, #653