Small Boat Voyages

Summer has finally arrived. I’ve been monitoring the temperature and humidity in the boat for some years now and take action accordingly. When Tarka is on the water it’s not so much of an issue but when she’s here at home extra care is given to prevent the boat getting too hot or to dry. The usual things I do include putting open tubs of water inside the cabin and cockpit below the floors, and sometimes when it gets really hot I throw a sheet over the top.

This year I don’t expect to be able to do much sailing due to one thing and another so I decided to get a new piece of kit in the form of a car port to provide a cool shade, a boat canopy to control the climate.

The box of parts arrived with a set of instructions explained that due to its size three people would be needed to lift the roof up in order to get the legs attached one side at a time. Sounded like a challenge to me, being someone brought up to be self reliant I decided to give it a go alone.

I assumed the structure would be a bit floppy until fully built and tied down with guy ropes so my aproach would be to attach a beam down one edge of the roof to keep it supported and lift the edge up using a pole, block and tackle i.e. a ‘handy billy’ as described in the book ‘The Marlinspike Sailor’. To support the roof, which is a good 20ft in length, I used a 10ft beam attached using lines and sheaves to spread the load. Then another pair of lines connecting the beam to the block and tackle. Once hoisted and tied off, the line tension in the system would be sufficient to hold the pole upright leaving me free to fit the legs. Once the legs on one side are fitted simply repeat on the other side.