From: jfh@cs.brown.edu (John F. Hughes)
Subject: Re: winter storage
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 23:18:31 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.104430.14226@uwm.edu> garnham@convex.csd.uwm.edu (David C Garnham) writes:
>
>I'd appreciate advice on proper storage of a new 17' I/O.  Should I pay $100
>extra for inside storage, or settle for shrink wrapped outside storage with
>separate battery storage?  Remember, this is Wisconsin where winters are
>real.  Thanks.

Arrgg....with the sheet in my left hand and the bear claw in my right, and the
tiller....well...secure, I'm off in my iceboat to challenge the frozen north.
Are ye southern boaters men or are ye lubbers?  (To paraphrase someone's
response to Greg Bullough). 


But to answer your question, partly: You want to take your battery indoors, as
you noted. You should also taken anything else that you *can* inside your
garage, junk room, etc. Now what about the boat? Well, there are two phases of
damage arising from winter storage. The first is from water getting in and
freezing and thus doing damage to things. The second is, in my opinion, from
Springtime. 

   To prevent the first, you need to get your boat very dry and keep it that
way. For small vessels, inverting the hull works pretty well, since boats are
designed to keep water out of themselves from that side. (You need to worry
still about water getting caught in the gutters beneath the rub rail on a
Whaler, for instance, though.) For an I/O, the havor wreaked on the mechanical
components is probably too great for inversion to work out. So the "keep it
dry" part involves covering it. Shrink wrap is a great way to do this, sort of.
There are a couple of problems with it. 
   First, it's environmentally nothing to write home about. That's an issue 
between you and your soul, for now at least.  Second, it basically seals 
the environment of the inside of your boat. What is fairly dry 75 degree 
air the day it gets sealed may become wet 35 degree air, and later turn 
into condensed water/ice when the temp gets to 25 degrees. 

   Soooo...people cut air holes in the shrink wrap. This is a sort-of
improvement, except that now rain and snow can get *in*. With luck, they 
get in, the sun warms the interior under the wrap, and they evaporate into the
air and are carried out through the breathing holes. With bad luck, they get 
in during the day, the night comes, and they freeze, doing small amounts of
ice damage to your boat. 

   You can improve on this---put a "breathing tube" made from something like a
clothes-dryer vent tube through the shrink wrap so that air can get in and out,
but not rain---I suppose, but things get complex.

   Second, shrink wrap can get punctured, and then high winds can shred it. If
you can't afford to check your boat after every serious windstorm, you're
taking a risk. 

   Third, if your winters are cold enough, the wrap may get brittle---I'm not
certain. If so, shredding is gonna be much more likely.



   So what about the second source of damage? the Springtime stuff? Well, in
Spring water gets in and sits under whatever cover you have and it's like
a greenhouse in there. A warm humid day followed by a cool night will yield
condensation, which generates mildew, stains vinyl, plays hell with anything
that prefers to be dry, etc. In general, I'm a fan of opening things up *a
little* as soon in Spring as possible. Don't wait until the first of June to
remove the shrink wrap---you may find you have the world's best harvest of 
mildew or other vile stuff. 


-John
Newsgroups: rec.boats