Everyone loves the feeling of the sun on their skin, but that doesn’t mean we should all start running around in the buff. Not only would that be both unlawful (at least in most places) and aesthetically gruesome, but we’d have to dip into the boating budget to pay for extra sunscreen and dermatologists. However, plenty of boat owners, folks who wouldn’t leave the house showing an extra square inch of skin, nevertheless store their boats naked, fully exposed to sun, rain, snow, sleet and other climatical assaults. Don’t subject your boat to this mistreatment: Invest in a proper, custom-fitted storage cover instead of one-and-done shrink wrap or ill-fitting blue polyethylene tarps. A custom-fitted cover is classier, does a better job and, although costly up front, in the long run is cheaper: With care it will likely last for twenty winters, and save two decades worth of discarded shrink wrap. When you sell your boat, you’ll hand the cover to the new owner.
Being a New Englander, when I think “cover,” I think about winter, about keeping the ice and snow off the old ark until the
