River Queen is wrapped

I’m up in the middle of the night again because the wind in blowing so hard that I am worried that all my hard work in shrink wrapping the boat is going to blow away! Of course, there is nothing I can do to prevent it – being up is not helping a bit. But up I am and am anxiously going out on deck every once in a while to check and make sure everything is still OK. So far the wrap and frame are holding.

I finally got the engines winterized on Friday night. I hired some help for this as I was unsure how to go about doing it myself. Now that I’ve seen it done – for next year, I will be fine to do it myself.

On Saturday, the wind finally died down for a couple of hours in the afternoon and we got the boat shrink wrapped. We got it done just in time as we had our first major snowfall Saturday night – about 10 inches or so. Then most of the day Sunday, we had freezing rain. Hmmm, makes one want to go south for the winter…

The wrapping went quite well and the result is – well, not pretty, but functional. I still have to finish the door and install it and also fix a couple of holes that I melted into it while shrinking. All in all though, I am pleased with how it went up and am very happy to finally have it done! I should get the door and repairs done this week and then bring on the winter!

Now for the Alberg. She comes out today … then I get to build the frame and shrink another boat. Oh the joy.

UPDATE: Done! The Alberg is out of the water and in its stand in the shed no less. That means that I don’t have to shrink wrap it – just throw a tarp over it. How great is that?! I also winterized the Atomic Bomb, the toilet and the water system. Once the Alberg was done – I finished the door for the houseboat and tightened up the plastic so that it cannot flap so much in the wind.

It was very windy today – getting the Alberg to the mast step dock and then to the travel lift was a real adventure. I was singlehanding as A. was somewhat preoccupied with the wee lass. Heavy winds mean heavy on the throttle and staying aware of where the bow is, ’cause if you don’t pay constant attention you are going sideways in a flash and there’s no room to recover if something goes wrong. I banged the pulpit a bit getting into the mast step slip but other than that it went well.

So, that’s it – for now! Both boats are winterized, wrapped (or in the shed) and ready for the next 6 months. Now I can relax a bit … for a day or two anyway.

I’ll post a picture or two tomorrow.