Christmas wrapping

Wrapped up for the winter, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

The boat wrapping season is well under way at the marina, with a selection of cruisers of all sizes and shapes being mummified in billowing sheets of blue polytarp.
As the wind funnelled around the pontoons this afternoon the noise of flapping tarpaulin and quivering guy ropes filled the air, and I was reminded of how much I don't want to cover Henry up in a blue plastic overcoat for the next four months.
The problem with covers is not so much the giant rainwater puddles that gather in any concave area, or the way they can break free from even the most comprehensive lashings, but the extent to which they prevent air from circulating around the boat.
When I was young and fit, and I owned yachts, I used to cover them up every winter. But I had the double advantage of the boat being out of the water, so I could lash the cover underneath the hull, and the mast being supported on crutches, horizontally, above the cabin roof and cockpit to support the tarpaulins and provide a gap for air at the bow and stern.
My only concern with boats like my Debutante and the rather sleek Pandora that I kept in Brightlingsea in the 1990's was chafing from the cover. To avoid the cover rubbing and damaging the boat I used yards of pipe insulation and taped foam wherever it touched a vulnerable surface.
The only way a cabin cruiser can be covered while it is in the water is to wrap it up like a gift under a Christmas tree, with no air space around it, and a web of ropes stretched hopefully across the cabin roof. As the cover flaps in the wind, and strains for the freedom it will inevitably achieve, it can do untold damage to old gelcoat, and it can strip brightwork like Nitromors. The boat 'sweats', the canopy is worn thin and a weekend check visit turns into a wrestling match between the owner and 50 kilograms of wet blue polyethylene.
So, Henry will be spending this winter out in the open. The rain will fall on her, the wind will blow around her and the odd leaf may land on her unprotected decks. But at least I know that the air can get to her, no matter how cold it is.

I should also like to take this opportunity to point out that there are in fact 20 Freeman 26's in the marina. I counted them today. For some reason I am relieved that I forgot two boats when I was writing my previous post. It makes me feel so much more cool.

Identical Crisis

A pair of Freeman 26's in Bridgehouse Marina, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

No two boats in the marina, or anywhere else for that matter, are absolutely alike. By the time any boat has been delivered, launched and commissioned it will have been altered, added to or modified in some way by the new owners. By the time it is a few years old it will have had any amount of equipment screwed on to it and personal preferences applied to it, from the colour of the upholstery to the deck layout. All boats are different in some way from one another even before this process takes place. They have their own identity in a way that a showroom full of Fords can only dream about. Why else would boat owners expend so much time and effort on choosing names for them? There aren't too many Mondeos called 'Enchantress' outside the Chatsworth Estate, and I don't know anyone who has named a Honda after their favourite perrenial.
There are, (and I am a little ashamed that I can work this out from memory) 18 Freeman 26's at the marina. Apart from the handful that have hardtops, and the odd twin engine installation, they are all identical on paper. They all have blue canopies, all have chrome window frames, all have an enamelled 'Freeman Cruisers' badge in the cockpit. None of them has been painted (perish the thought) none of them has had a flying bridge fitted, and not one has been 'restored' inside with five litres of eggshell and a laminate floor. And yet, they are all different. Apart from the obvious, like names and curtains, there are two different bow shapes (pre 1968 boats have a cut away forefoot) four different types of masts and an infinite variety of bathing ladders, davits and lights. The older boats seem to sit higher in the water, the twin engined ones are (predictably) lower at the transom and the hardtops seem bigger all round. Their gelcoat exteriors may have left the factory at Wolvey the same colour, but a lifetime of polishes and cleaners has given them as many different shades of white as a Dulux colour chart. After forty years of different owners the only similarity in their electrical systems is the fact that they conduct electricity, and their classic four berth interiors are as varied as show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show.
They may well steer and handle differently too, but I would have to own all 18 of them before I could be sure. I'm not particularly opposed to the idea of changing my boat from time to time, but I'm also not the Sultan of Brunei, so that's an experiment that will have to wait until my 7 numbers come up.

Inside Out

Norman 23 'Henry', originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I like boats.
I happen to like my Ipod, red wine, Subarus, Jennifer Aniston, Norfolk, photography, Border Terriers and the Foo Fighters as well. But more than any of them (except you Jennifer in case you're reading this), I like boats.
There's just something about them, the way they bob around in the water, the shape of them, the reflections they make, the feeling of well being they create by being on board them... Boats are just great.
Even at this time of year, when they can turn into a complete liability in the time it takes for Isobel Lang to say 'a deep depression is moving in from the Irish Sea...', a boat is still a source of pleasure and an emotional asset. I disappear off to the boat in my mind about five times a minute on average. More frequently in meetings, a little less when I am obliged to listen, like when I am actually chairing them.
Liking the Foo Fighters is all well and good, but humming along to my own mental rendition of Long Road to Ruin is a poor second to thinking about whether I can justify having Navtex on a canal cruiser (actually, I can and I have) or what colour I should paint the waterline next year.
All of which is why, despite the expense, the hard work, the fact that using TBT antifouling paint in the 1970's has shortened my life by ten years and the vagaries of the BSC test, I still like boats. Lots.

In or Out?

This contraption, which looks more like the outcome of a Scrapheap Challenge, is the boat lift at the marina. The last time it embraced my boat was about a year ago when Henry was hoisted out and wheeled into the shed so that we could re-antifoul her.
Opinion (including my own) varies about how frequently a GRP cruiser should be lifted out, and for how long. When I had the Beneteau on Windermere I took her out of the water every winter, as much to comply with the insurance as anything else, but I know several people who keep their boats on the lake for two years at a time. When I bought Henry, her previous owner, Mike, told me that she was lifted out every few years, but that she had not been on dry land for four years.
I am sure that the osmosis doom mongers would say that anything less than six months out of every twelve on dry land is asking for trouble, but I have become fairly sanguine about the possibility of an old GRP hull having the odd blister or two. In fairness, GRP canal cruisers tend not to sink from osmosis, and in any event, it has been suggested to me that every GRP boat has suffered a certain amount of 'wicking' and as long as the blisters are smaller than dinner plates there is nothing to worry about.
Incidentally this was from someone who was trying to sell me a boat at the time, so no vested interest there then.
My own apparently casual approach to the whole issue is supported by the surveyor's report on Henry, which despite her lack of time out of the water since 1980, described the underwater hull sections as being 'in excellent condition'.
And that, since I greatly enjoy using her all year round, is good enough for me.