winter cover

is up! Took us 3 hours to get the damn thing up! The cover came in three pieces of heavy canvas that are zipped together over the boom and attached to stanchions and pulpits. We had a pretty heavy breeze going on Saturday so it was like wrestling with demons. I put a line underneath the canvas stretching from the boom end to the aft stay to reduce the sag in the cockpit area. Probably have to add some more lines to the sides as well before it starts snowing. Also, drained all the water from the pipes and replaced it with antifreeze. Constance should be all ready to go through the winter now!

winterizing..

Last night was the first night below freezing up here in the Northeast. High time to finalize winterizing the boat! Did oil/filter change, drained freshwater from the pipes and put some biocide into the diesel tank. Both main and furling jib are down, flaked and bagged down below. Also checked the zincs. The heat exchanger zinc was half gone after 3 months so I probably need to exchange that one. Dove into the freezing harbor to check the zincs on the prop shaft, they were still fine. I thought with the colder temperatures those pesky birds that love to sit on the wind vane and shit happily on the decks would finally leave, but the colder weather seems to have invigorated them instead. Grr. So I guess we need to do some more deck scrubbing. Anyways, once we know which berth Constance will have (since the boat will stay in the water), I'll put up the brand new canvas cover. Keeping fingers crossed, I hope the canvas store got the measurements right. Up here we can expect snow within a few weeks so I better get this thing up. The bubbler below the boat is supposed to keep the sea water from freezing so it's relatively safe to leave the boat in the water. Probably need to haul the boat out in spring but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.