The Baltic region has again received a fair share of harsh winter storms. It is common knowledge that weather plays a big role in boatman’s life and, perhaps surprisingly, winter time makes no exception. Namely, in many parts of the world, leisure boating is around-the-year activity but in the Baltic region, not so much. Here, the hardcore boater’s season is from April to November, and most of us spend maybe three months doing occasional boating. Surprisingly many use their boats for a mere week or two. So what have winter storms to do with a Finnish boater? They can mess up the winterization process.
While storing a boat on the sea (attached to a pier) can be problematic if it is stormy, it is not even a possibility for most boat types in case the sea gets frozen (as it always does always on the Finnish coast). Leaving the boat floating puts water in small holes and other places where it can make great damage while it freezes and expands. Thus, boats need to be docked for the winter. This is, in general, quite a pain in the ass.
Lauttasaari boat harbor with boats docked for winter.
First, the boat is lifted to some kind of stand where it holds its position (hopefully!). Then a series of winterization activities take place. The absolute minimum is to get rid of all water in wrong places, such as all pipelines and the engine. Don’t do this, and the engine gets completely damaged during the first nights of below zero temperatures. This will cost you at least a few thousand euros and, since you didn’t do even this, many other things have likely gone wrong, too. Like not covering the boat, which causes nasty mold problems, among other things. So the real minimum is to winterize the engine and carefully cover the boat. After that, there is an endless list of things that really should be done (wash the hull, clean, do annual engine maintenance, etc.) and finally, there are the things you might want to improve on top of must-dos, such as sanding and painting in case of a boat with wooden hull or cabin.
Actually, the winterization can be done in one weekend if you’re “a doer” and know exactly what you are doing. For us who are kind of experimenting rather than “applying experience based knowledge”, building a boat shelter can be a leeeengthy and painful task. And the worst enemy of such a shelter is a storm! Every time a new Eino, Oskari or Seija (Finnish names for the recent storms) rages, I lose my sleep for the thought that the shelter will not last in the storm. Having once been forced to empty a boat from water in +2 degrees due to a crashed shelter and then building a new one a few days later in -15, I can tell from experience that it sucks when this happens. This winter has been merciful so far, but the shelter has received upgrades 1.0->1.1->1.2-> (just today) 2.0 already.
Nice examples what winter storms do (sources: yle.fi, bluebrook.files.wordpress.com, my own boat).
In Helsinki alone, there are over 10 000 leisure boat owners. A majority is likely to store their boats outside over winter, because a place in an inside hall costs a fortune. So, are we all masochists? I don’t think so. Most boats are rather small and a lot easier to cover compared to our 10.5 meter one and there are clever ways to make a durable shelter for a large boat, too. Obviously, most boaters find the trouble caused by the winterization process and the risk caused by storms minor compared to joys of boating during the summer. So maybe this post – first one in this blog – can serve as a motivational introduction: if the boatowner’s winter is long and painful, the activity itself must be really fun, which is exactly what I think - and what I will write about in my next posts!