Clear Shrink Wrapping questions

[Shoalcove]

I’ve used shrink wrapping the last few years and like the way it works. I used to build a rather elaborate wooden frame and cover with a tarp but it had some issues and was less effective. The shrink wrap only requires a wooden Center ridge pole and some strapping as a frame.
I live in an area that gets a lot of snow so shedding snow was the number one requirement. I very much dislike and am troubled by the waste with shrink wrap. I do try to mitigate the waste by reusing it for other purposes. I cut up the used wrap for tarps, painting drop cloths, protective covers on my work bench, trunk liners in my car and any other use I can think of. It’s very durable and useful beyond covering a boat. My previous heavy duty tarps were always shot by year 3 and also represented waste.

[Redline452]

FWIW, after the first year of shrinkwrapping our SO 45.2 (bought in October just in time for haul-out, and the shrink job already booked with the yard), I really wasn't happy with the single-use cover and ordered one from Quinte Canvas a.k.a. TopShop of Kingston Ontario (Home). As the boat was in the USA at the time, they provided a measuring guide and built an aluminum frame from those figures, then with a few more measurements taken with the frame installed (to get the shroud locations exact; I store with the mast up), they fabricated the cloth cover in three sections. I added a few extra braces since then as the boat is fairly wide, but there's room to walk about the deck and work on the boat while covered, and I just installed it last week for the fourteenth (!) year. The cloth has held up fine, I've resewn a number of zippers and seams (same issue with my bimini/dodger from a different vendor). The metal frame stores on the cradle an has held up well. I did use a webcam on the cabintop to check on snow loading when the boat was a 2-hour drive away, moderate snow is fine but we do get some heavy/wet dumps up here at 46 North. IIRC the cover and frame came to about $4000 (Cdn), which works out to under $300/year, so absolutely worth it!

[Boston Blackie]

We truck our J42 home to our yard in Topsfield, MA. She is happily sleeping under the original white Dr Shrink wrap shell she had when we bought her 7 years ago. I slit the transom end to allow it to be unlaced and removed. This year we taped a few holes with 6" shrink film tape from West. We reuse the doubled 1x3 ridge with 2x3 posts every 8 feet or so. This year I added new poly webbing rafter straps every 2' clove hitched around the ridge and over the lifelines down to the aluminum toe rail holes. The key is to have a very steep pitch. We are about 7' above the coach roof near the mast and tapering down fore and aft. The webbing rafters support the ridge and prevent snow hernias inside the lifelines.

I built a conduit frame for tarps for our last boat, but the simple posted ridgepole with webbing rafters and a reused shrink cover on ConverJence is just as strong in our New England Noreasters and way simpler to rig and stow.

Cheers
Bill

[pcmm]

Our winter cover complete with the stack for the diesel stove.

[Maka]

Not quite the same but........
I built a PVC arch from just behind the main mast back to the mizzen mast with 3/4 inch PVC ( the white one ). one 10 foot length going into a cross fitting and another 10 foot length into the other side. Down the middle I ran a connector piece to support the center spacing. Total arch length = 20 feet. Three arch sections...one at the main mast , one at the mizzen mast and one in the middle. Total length aprox 18 feet.
This is high enough to allow me to walk down either side of the boat.
No glue....all fittings held in place by tension.
PVC Secured on the sides being tied to stanchions of my lifeline.
Several points on all four sides tension kept on tarp ( Now Sunbrella ) thru the grommets to various tie down points.

After a year under a tarp successfully I had a Sunbrella cover made...so now it is permanent addition.
15 minutes to put up or take down.

PVC pieces stored in a 4" length of ABS pipe secured on the deck along a gunnel...the Sunbrella folded and stored below.
Keeps sun and weather off of my Full Dodger as well managing boat internal temperatures.
Snow slid off the Tarp no problem....we will see what snow does on the Sunbrella this winter.
I should mention it held up well in high winds too.

[Malabarista]

Maybe a little off topic but i am about to try an idea that was given to me by a very helpful guy at the boatyard.
After watching me struggling for the third time to repair the wind damaged tunnel i had built ( using 2” mdpe gas pipe with rebar up the middle for strength) he suggested that instead of tying the tarp down i should instead hang 2 liter milk cartons ( plastic recycling) filled with water all around the boat. This would allow the wind to raise them to ‘dump’ the pressure and return to their original position. I haven’t done this yet as still mulling it over. Anyone ever tried?

Not much chance of heavy snow on the south east coast of UK.

[SV Siren]

Originally Posted by Ivanvet

Hi,

It's our first winter in Boston too, and we opted for building it with 1 1/2 PVC tubing. I wanted to reuse the frame for the next few years, as long as it lasts. I finished the frame 2 days ago and am waiting for the shrink wrap (as you said, one of these days...).
What I would like to do is to through bolt all the joints to make sure they don't fall apart, although the shrinkwrappers team were saying that it maybe over kill, and that once the plastic is heated it will pull everything pretty tight. After seeing the comment above, I don't think anything is overkill. S/V siren, was your wrap heated? or just wrapped around it?

Anyway, send me a PM if you want to have a look at it. I cannot recommend it yet, but I'll have a pretty good idea after few noreasters!

Limbodog,

My pvc frame was shrinkwrapped, I also added wire stiffeners both fore/aft, and port/starboard. It was extremely stiff once done. I had a 45 degree pitch to the roofline, and still the snow would not shed on it's own. Adding a good sized heater under the cover *might have helped in this regard. We had 12" of snow overnight, and that morning as I was putting my boots on to "bump" the snow off from inside, I stood there and watched the entire thing collapse under the weight. Later inspection of the frame showed fractured pipes, and connectors. lots of little pieces, and bigger pieces everywhere. It was a huge mess. To compound the issue, I had removed every hatch, locker lid, and window in the fall to restore them in my shop, needless to say several times I had to crawl under the debris to pump out 3' of water out of the bilge.


If you think that this *should work, it wont unless you are there to remove snow accumulation all the time.

[SV Siren]

Originally Posted by Malabarista

Maybe a little off topic but i am about to try an idea that was given to me by a very helpful guy at the boatyard.
After watching me struggling for the third time to repair the wind damaged tunnel i had built ( using 2” mdpe gas pipe with rebar up the middle for strength) he suggested that instead of tying the tarp down i should instead hang 2 liter milk cartons ( plastic recycling) filled with water all around the boat. This would allow the wind to raise them to ‘dump’ the pressure and return to their original position. I haven’t done this yet as still mulling it over. Anyone ever tried?

Not much chance of heavy snow on the south east coast of UK.

Here is the Great Lakes(Michigan) you will see a lot of milk cartons in use on tarps to help secure them. They work really well when done right.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by SV Siren

Here is the Great Lakes(Michigan) you will see a lot of milk cartons in use on tarps to help secure them. They work really well when done right.

Ahhh yes, I remember those milk jugs hung on tarps when growing up in Michigan. If I were still there, it would be worth purchasing a full Sunbrella/Top Gun cover custom made to fit the boat rather than shrink wrap every year. The cost of a couple of years of shrink wrap would pay for a reusable full cover, then a decade or more of "free" use.

Lots of sand bags work also especially if you have plenty of grommets/webbed attachment points as done with professionally made full covers. The relatively smaller bags help distribute the load better than too much weight on a single point and are softer than frozen plastic bottles hitting the hull.


Bill O.

[john61ct]

I've spent hundreds of hours helping my horticulturist neighbor in their plastic greenhouse, very pleasant space to be in year round.

Semicircular profile, 25' wide and maybe 15' at the top. Sheds the snow just fine, automatic ventilation system, oil heat burners, the lot.

If I could I would get one of these built tall enough for my boat, maintain it as a permanent garage over the years, roll in roll out.

Spare MIL flat in winter as well.

[SV Siren]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I've spent hundreds of hours helping my horticulturist neighbor in their plastic greenhouse, very pleasant space to be in year round.

Semicircular profile, 25' wide and maybe 15' at the top. Sheds the snow just fine, automatic ventilation system, oil heat burners, the lot.

If I could I would get one of these built tall enough for my boat, maintain it as a permanent garage over the years, roll in roll out.

Spare MIL flat in winter as well.

Depending on what size you need, what you are looking for is called a Stimson Shed. They are scalable, easy to build, and can take a beating if done right.

https://www.google.com/search?q=stim...w=1366&bih=619.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAX5iEg2oQ0

[john61ct]

Well the framework steel for big greenhouses can be picked up a lot cheaper, buy yes that's a nice design, less volume to heat.

[teppokurki]

Check out this rather professional one for inspiration:

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/50937047" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[teppokurki]

This construction is cheap, robust and reasonable to put up and tear down. Long boards, 2x4s, 2x2s. Steel corner braces. Now on its 7th year or so, first year I patched some holes in the tarp.