Every boater knows that there is a list, a long list, of things they never told you before you bought your boat. It’s like a secret handshake in the nautical world, the unrevealed mysteries of holding tank plumbing, the 0300 anchor checks, the bumps in the night when someone else fails to make their 0300 anchor check… sure, you’ve read articles like this, maybe you even laughed a little bit, but you never really thought it was going to happen to you on your boat, or if it did, it wasn’t going to be as bad as it sounded.
Well, most of those things are pretty universal experiences, and you can have them anywhere from Port Hardy to the Yucatan, and if you mention them in the company of sailors you will get a chorus of nods and a healthy raft of “That’s nothing! One time, I…” replies. But it turns out there is a whole other subset of things they never told us that are exclusively cold-weather related! That’s boating in a nutshell, isn’t it? Just when you think you’ve seen it all….
New on our list for winter:
– Winter storm forecasts made with the benefit of the expensive new coastal radar are no better than the summer ones made without it
– Snow piled up on deck in front of your sliding hatch will make it difficult to open. Snow, topped by a glaze of frozen rain, will weld you inside your boat like you’ve been sealed up in a space ship about to be shot off on a six month voyage to Mars
– The drip-lip inside your deck-accessible anchor locker that tends to accumulate water in the summer will freeze that hatch shut in a solid block of ice when it snows. If your water tank fill happens to be located in the anchor locker, you will run out of water at just this time
– That doesn’t matter, because the faucet at your slip will be frozen anyway and you’ll have to hike up to the restrooms to fill up your spare water jugs
– Hatches with ice and snow layered atop them shed condensation at approximately 300 times their normal winter rate
– Frozen, ice-encrusted fenders banging against the hull in a windstorm are every bit as annoying as squeaky fenders are in the summer
– Marina access streets are not high on the city’s “to be plowed/sanded” list
– Dock carts do not come in an “all wheel drive” version
– Ice in the rigging really does increase the roll period of the boat so that a 20 knot breeze at your slip feels like crossing the Strait on a bad day
– All that long expanse of dock you appreciated in the summer because it kept you away from the hustle and bustle near the ramp has become an impassable wasteland of treacherous ice, snow drifts, and frozen heron crap
– Despite all this, when you finally reach the head of the dock, you will feel like Roald Amundsen and your sense of triumph will outweigh all the hardships
