Prepping part two

I continue to be plagued by visitors. I guess I shouldn't complain. At least today's visitor didn't spend all day telling me what I should be doing.

Yesterday, I got the 'foundation' built. I wanted something to tie the tarp down to and I wanted it to go under the boat so that it couldn't just up and blow away.



Basically, it is 3 twelve foot 2x4's running down each side with 2 2x4's running under the keel. The 2x4's running down the side are bolted so I can take them home and store them for next year.



Then the fun part. I have always admired Stimson sheds.



I even bought the plans. Unfortunately, they don't fit in the space I am in. They are taller and wider than I have available to me. I really wanted to try out some of their design features so I decided to use the double-strapping-with-spacers idea for a curved 'bow' that would hold the tarp out and away from the boat. The ridgepole is firmly on deck so the bows don't need to support anything.



The bows were custom fit in position which made them a bit tricky to fabricate. The inner strap was fed under the ridgepole and then the strap was screwed into the 'foundation'. Then I bent the bow to clear the sides of the boat and screwed it to the ridgepole. Then I added the spacers and attached the outer bow. What I hadn't factored on, however, was that when I released the pressure on the bow, the bow would spring up a bit, lifting the ridgepole and the fixtures I had built for the ridgepole to sit on. By the time I had made two opposing bows, the nearest fixture would be six inches off the deck. I tried holding the ridgepole down with ratcheting straps with no success. I did succeed in putting some pretty impressive bends in the ridgepole. My solution in the end was to live with the springback and when I was all done I added extensions to the fixtures so they were taking the load and not the bows. In the end I built 3 bows for each side (6 in total for those that are math averse).

Finally, I ran a length of strapping near the gunwale to keep the tarp away from the edge and ran vertical strapping, left over from previous incarnations of boat covers, from the ridgepole to the strapping. I did this about every 2-3 feet.




I still need to finish off the ends but with almost 2 inches of rain expected tonight, I decided to just throw the tarp over and finish it when the rains cease. It was dark when I finished up today so I couldn't take photos.

So far, I am on target to spend about $100 on the boat cover. I seem to spend about the same amout every year. Even though I re-use a good portion of last year's parts. At the rate I am going, I expect to have a complete barn that can be broken down and stored in my garage during the sailing season in about two years...