I had some cracks open up in my boat after this last winter storage and I have owned the boat for 27 years. Boat was covered outside, but it was a weird winter here in Maine. We had generally warm weather and rain and some a few very cold bouts with deep freezing. What I think happened was that more water got blown through the cover, got deeper into the cracks because of the generally warmer weather of this winter, and froze harder on the exceptionally cold days. At least that is my theory. I will never store the boat outside again. I had an uncommon amount of moisture below as well and a lot of electrical corrosion from the warm wet spells. Lesson to me is to keep the boat dry through the winter and the only way to do that is to get it inside. I think if I had fewer systems (no forced air diesel heater, no below deck autopilot, no windlass solenoids, no refrigeration and fewer pumps—I had failures in all of these first thing in Spring) storing outside would just be a cosmetic issue, but I have spent half the summer repairing and replacing electrical systems that I attribute corrosion. I think the below decks was turned into a wet hot pressure cooker for much of the winter. Never again. Our winters are getting warmer and I think this actually has an effect on storage options. Keep down condensation has always been an issue, but last year was a nightmare. FWIW. Ray Durkee
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