finally the winter cover

Trip dates: 
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Trip length: 
1 day
Type of watercraft: 
Power

The Mighty Quinn should have donned her winter cover a month ago, as noted in my last entry. However, the winter cover, as is, would have pooled water. I tried using flexible 1" PVC to make a frame for the cover. This has worked before, shrink wrapping a former bigger boat. However, this time the tight radius needed for a smaller boat made it a bad idea.

I settled on the idea of custom saw horses as the center-line ridge that would keep a slope on the cover and eliminate water pooling. These are easily made of 2x4s, which I purchased and placed on the dock. But I needed to order the saw horse joiners from Home Depot. That was delay one.

So today I had the saw horse joiners in hand and walked down to the dock to initiate the second attempt at a winter cover. First I had to properly adjust the bunk boards and guide poles on the lift for this boat. Why I didn't do that when it was warm is anybody's guess.

The Mighty Quinn, already winterized, was briefly back in the water so I could makes the adjustments which went very well. Back on the lift and level, I went to start cutting the lumber to make the custom saw horses. The lumber was gone.

It seems we had an extreme high tide or two in the past week. Unbeknownst to me, the lumber intended for the saw horses drifted off the dock during one king tide event or the other. It is either that or the geese took them.

Diverted from my main task, I winter covered the rowing dinghy and strapped it and the kayaks to the floating dock, ready for a strong winter blow. Tomorrow I will go back to Home Depot, buy some additional 2x4s and hopefully complete the winter cover install.