A Silver Lining (Blast from the Past Picture Essay)

We're heading south in just 3 weeks, hurricane season permitting.  The only ice Dan wants to see this winter is in his drink glass.  But in previous winters, we weren't so lucky, and had to stay here in the Chesapeake for our jobs. Our boat, though, was designed for the tropics, designed to stay cool, not hot.  So we prepared for winter by shrinkwrapping, or in our case just taping heavy-duty translucent plastic painters dropcloths.  To help retain heat inside and minimize condensation, we taped Reflectix (silver bubble wrap) everywhere.  My friend Ellen called the result our "silver lining."  It worked really well!  But this year, I think going south will do an even better job of keeping us warm.

Because the mast is keel-stepped, it was a conduit for cold down from above.  Wrapped!

The wall behind the galley was particularly susceptible to condensation from cooking steam.  Wrapped!

Another view of the mast.  Don't the pets look warm and relaxed?

The area around the nav station, and the louvers in the companionway drop boards were wrapped.

Overhead, too.  We didn't do the hatches because it would just be too dark.  A bonus; the silver reflected light and made winter less gloomy.

In addition to the silver, we used clear heat-shrink plastic meant to provide temporary insulation for house windows on the glazing.

Above the range.

We did every inch of hull!

The blue tape is 60-day painters masking tape.  It did pretty well in not leaving too much mess when we removed it.

More blue tape.  The whole project took about a week.

Lots of curves and irregular surfaces.

We did the insides of the lockers too.

In the v-berth, we used supports of plastic to keep the bigger pieces in place. Note the small electric heater on a shelf near our toes.  Toasty!

And outside, we built a frame of wood and PVC and draped plastic drop cloth.  We got a wonderful greenhouse effect on sunny days.

Here's the entire enclosed boat.  Bright and cozy, though we couldn't see out through the translucent plastic.

Antifreeze jugs half full of water held the edges down in the wind.

Here's part of the framework of PVC as we peeled the plastic back in spring.

More of the framework ...

We made the frame this tall so Dan could work on the deck during the winter.

Nautical version of a geodesic dome.