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I am looking for a good winter boat cover for my 25M. It must have cutouts for the life-line stays and use the mast in the laid down position as the primary support. Some covers I have found online do not have the cutouts and water will accumulate in the dip between the lifelline and the mast. We get a LOT of snow and rain here in North Idaho and the cover must be able to support a substantial amount of snow load or shed it off promptly.

I have a 26M and the covers as you describe are in the $800 range. I have done some looking and found that you can buy a DIY "carport", with metal roof and some overhanging sides for somewhere in the $900-$1,000 range. Might be a good alternative for you. This way, you just use a $15 harbor freight tarp to loosely cover the boat, which would be protected from snowfall by the roof. Just a thought....

I built a mast support for the front of the boat to get the mast level front to back, then pulled a tarp over and pegged it down. This allowed the tarp to clear the stanchions and she's snow better but not totally, mostly due to the cheap poly tarp. I had thought about purchasing a custom canvas tarp for 300-400 $ but neve got around to it. When I was looking I did find a custom cut tarp without centre cutouts was around 600 cnd FYI.

yukonbob wrote:I built a mast support for the front of the boat to get the mast level front to back, then pulled a tarp over and pegged it down.

That's a mighty fine idea you have there!

Just for a point of reference, I put a 2x3 on the flat across the two lifeline stanchions on the cabin (with partial depth bores to capture the stanchions), and another on the mast, plus a short support under mast at the tabernacle, and build a rib cage across all that, with four ribs on each side. Slacken the lifelines, and tarp with cheap black/silver Harbor Freight tarps. Most snow doesn't remain, but if it piles up, I snow rake it off. Tarps have survived five or six winters so far. Line to tie the tarps to the trailer are long Home Depot hanks of some cheap braid.

Ends of the ribs are match marked to the rib on the mast and on the stanchions (port and starboard, 1-4) so it's quick to put it back together in the early winter. Yeah, I wait until November. Often late November, which is really pushing my luck around these parts. We get around 100" [2.54 m] annually, on average.

I use this







From here

http://www.navigloo.com/en?gclid=CJCz3L ... hgodTpMMkQ

G

I use a custom tarp from
Tumacs covers. From http://thesailwarehouse.com/cgi-bin/web ... anvas.html
We moved our from AB with lots of winter wind which kept the tarp clear of snow to NW Ontario with lots of snow.
To address the sag points between the stanchions and horizontals mast I inflated exercise balls in 4 points under the tarp. Hoping this works as we are 20h away.
Hugh