Preparing for six months on the hard in high latitude winters

 October 15th - October 20th Orkanger

With lift out planned for the 17th the afternoons was spent preparing the boat for winter.

To avoid close contacts I chose to try to take down and fold the sails alone. I store the sails at a sail loft in Trondheim so the folding don't need better than to get them to fit in the sailbags. Luckily the dock was dry. But finish in the darkness.

Through the week more and more of the boats that was to be lifted out together showed up. Unfortunately at least one of the boats was to deep and bottomed out in the low tide. I also winterised the engine and emptied the freshwater while in the water this time. 

The lift out went well, albeit wet, cold and fairly windy. We amateur load handlers made up of a ragtag tema of sailors had a couple of near misses when hanging boats swung a little to close to other boats for comfort. But no damage was made.

Sunday (18th) the weather got better. And I could have last short moment of cockpit, though the benches was wet. My nephew and his girlfriend came and helped me getting a tarpaulin cover to try to protect the teak from most of the expected maybe 1 m of snow at some time during the winter. I also tried to secure the halyards to avoid them banging against the mast in the upcoming gales and storms. Neither the cover or the securing of the halyards was entirely successful - but everything survived the winter. 

Not much snow yet on December 26th

I keep all cushions and most other textiles in the boat over winter. I  place som moisture traps and close the down completely, trying to avoid any exchange with the outside air. I believe this is against all recommendations (ventilate well and store textiles in heated rooms). I have done it this way all seven winters I've had the boat without any problems.  Here the high latitudes and stable low winter temperatures actually is helping, mold doesn't grow much below 7ºC.

Thanks for a nice but somewhat distanced season.