Boat storage

It is that dreaded time of year when I have to winterize and store the boat. I have always done the winterization myself as well as the shrink wrapping and am just not up for doing it again. My local marina will winterize, shrink wrap and store the boat for $600. I think I would probably do the winterizing myself anyways since I don't trust the local guy who doesn't sell inboards so I would essentially be paying somebody $600 to shrink and store the boat. I was thinking about getting one of those canvas and steel frame structures that they sell for this sort of thing. I have no idea how easy they are to assemble and take down. It isn't something I would want in my side yard year round. If anyone has any experience with one, I would appreciate some feedback on brands as well as time to install and take down. Looking around, a 12 x 24 foot dome shaped one is about $650. Do these things hold up well to snow and how long do they last?

Andy

nh moomba, i have read many different threads on those type of canvas/steel structures and based on where you live i believe you will have the good possible problem of the weight of snow causing the building to collapse.

just something to think about.

I found people like the ones from Costco. I have used heavy duty plastic tarps to wrap my boat in. I have had no problems but it does take some time to do it right as you don't want problems in the middle of winter. I use boards to cover the large gap at the back of the boat and the open bow, then I put my trailering cover (last defense if the tarp leaks) then I used two tarps as one big tarp is too big on the sides to seal the boat. The first tarp goes over the rear transom to barely over the front windshield and the second tarp goes on the front and overlaps the first tarp from the windshield on back. I tie the tarps down either to parts on the trailer or underneath to the tarp holes on other side. The tower requires the tarps to be wrapped around them as there are two layers of tarps at that point so I use the rear tarp to wrap the rear post on the tower and the front tarp to wrap the front tower post. At the front, the tarp becomes rather excessive so you need to tuck on side into the other on the bottom of the boat and tie it tight. I usually block the front up a ways to allow better runoff. We don't get much snow but when we do I usually go out and brush it off. I also take as much off of the boat as I can and store it in the boat such as the rear deck, all of the tower hardware. I take the spare tire and put it in the garage. Some people put the trailer on blocks also.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did try a tarp a few boats ago and it was disastrous. The snow we get in New England is considerable sometimes. Last year, my shrink wrapping collapsed after a particularly large snowfall. I have a Monster Tower which collapses neatly under the factory cover (the second one since a snow fall crushed the original one that was under a tarp -long story) so that isn't a problem. I have been hoping that people would say they had no snow load problems and that they can put them up and take them down in 15 minutes!

NH, A buddy of mine got the one from Costco for just the same thing you're doing. It took us a couple hours to put up and secure. He left it up until the canvas deteriorated and fell apart with a big snow load last year. However, it did pretty well the first winter and did stand up to about an 18" snow (I live near Lake Tahoe) that needed to be knocked off.

I went to Cosco.com and couldn't find anything that resembled a temporary garage. Is this something they only have at the store?

Andy