Mast Wiring Complete

It's finally starting to warm up a bit, although not as much as I'd like but sufficient to get back to work on projects.  One of the final projects to tackle before the launch this summer is the mast and although the bones of it are sound, a lot of work needs to be done before it's ready to stand up.  All told there are 5 mast projects that need to be completed (or are completed).

1. Masthead removal and rebuild - completed: here
2. Wiring - this post
3. Mast track - Tides marine sail track
4. Rigging tang installation
5. A good scrubbing

When I bought the boat, the wiring was in sad shape and need 100% replacement. I left a lot of it in place after I dismantled the masthead so I could use it as a guide when it came time to replace it all.  Also, the original fixtures were incandescent which drew significantly more power and consequently, heavy gauge wire.  The good news is that the new fixtures I'm installing are all LED and can use 16 gauge wire instead of 12 gauge in the original, giving me more room in the mast tunnel for robust wiring (it's tight, see schematic with tunnel circled in green).  In total there are 4 fixtures that need wiring in the mast: the VHF antenna, the anemometer for wind speed, a combination tricolor/anchor light at the top of the mast and a combination steaming/foredeck light located mid mast. 

Since the VHF and anemometer cable have already been determined (Raymarine for the anemometer and radio antena physics for the VHF), I needed to find some robust 16-18 gauge wiring to send power to the tricolor/anchor and steaming/foredeck lights.  I could have gone with 18 gauge to keep things smaller, but I only want to do this once and I want it to last so I purchased a spool of 16 gauge triplex bilge wiring that should satisfy my needs. The reason for triplex wiring is that each of the fixtures has 2 positive leads and 1 common ground so that each function on the fixtures can be controlled independently.  The final reason for choosing the triplex bilge wiring is that is it beefy and should stand up to many years of abuse hidden in the mast.

Installing the steaming/foredeck light was pretty straightforward and the mounting holes were a perfect fit with the original fixture (including the genoa guard).  The tricolor/anchor was slightly more complicated and I'm glad I pulled and rebuilt the masthead unit last year and hadn't reinstalled it, because I needed to find a slightly different mounting location for the tricolor/anchor (the mast never had a tricolor on top before, just an anchor light).

I found a good location on the masthead where it was out of the way of other equipment on top and allowed me to use the same hole to pass the wires through so that they didn't interfere with the halyard sheaves.  after I tapped new screw holes and mounted the light, I decided to test it before reinstalling the whole assembly and while I had tested it when I pulled it from the box and everything worked fine, once it was mounted, only the tricolor worked unless I tilted the whole masthead at an angle. I decided I must have caused a short or loose connection when I mounted it, so I took it off and pulled the whole unit apart and re-torqued all the connections, but it was still intermittently turning on and off.  Next I put the tricolor light in the anchor socket and the anchor light in the tricolor socket and the anchor light was still acting funny.  I thought, "Ah, it must be a bad LED bulb" and found the serial number online and was just about to order another one when I noticed in the specs that this bulb had a light sensing diode on it, so it only turns on "Dusk to Dawn".  Duh... 

Sure enough, when I located the diode and put my finger on it, the light turned on and back off again when I took my finger off.  As it turns out, when I initially tested the fixture out of the box it was nighttime. When I tested it after I mounted the whole fixture and thought it was related to the angle it was tilted, it was actually because I was tilting it away from a window causing it to darken enough to turn the light on...  Moral of the story: "I am an idiot", but it was nice to find a new feature on the light that I hadn't expected.  The fixture as sold does not come with the "Dusk to Dawn" diode, so the previous owner must have replaced it and put it back in the box.  

With that revelation finally understood, I remounted the fixture on the masthead and took both fixtures over to the boat to get them installed.  I ran 2 lengths of triplex bilge wire from the base of the mast to each fixture and crimped the connections with shrink connectors.  Then I heated up all the connections with my heat gun to shrink the connectors over the wire until I could see the little squirt of glue coming out around the wire.  

The final part of the installation for the tricolor/anchor light was to run the halyard chase lines through the sheaves in the masthead (2 jib, 1 main) and tap the masthead back into place and bolt it on.  To test it all, I brought over a smallish 12v lithium battery and stripped the tricolor bilge wire at the base of the mast and powered up each function. I'm happy to report that after the silliness with the "Dusk to Dawn" diode, everything worked as expected (as long as I cupped my hands around the anchor light because it was still bright out).  

It's Been a Minute

It's been quite a cold and snowy winter here in NH and actual work on the boat has pretty much ceased until conditions improve a bit (it won't be long now).  I haven't been idle though; my office has become the official Velorum Skunk Works lab until I get back on the boat and I don't want to share everything yet because I want to get everything installed before I report back on it.  The office closely mimics the messy madness that resides between my ears. For now though, I'll just say that it is lithium related and includes a bunch of monitoring/charging goodies. More on that soon. 

I have been working on another project that I wasn't entirely sure I'd get to this year, but finding myself idle after the project mentioned above was finished I decided to go ahead and install the Maxwell RC8-8 windlass with capstan.  By install, I really mean get ready to install because there was (and still is) a lot of planning and design work to do before I start cutting holes in the boat.  After a lot of thought and careful measurements, I came up with a plan where I could build the entire mounting base for the windlass so when the weather finally does warm up I can essentially drop it in and wire it up.  

After a lot of research on other Niagara 35s with windlasses, it was clear that I would need to elevate the windlass up off the deck to be able to meet the correct vertical angle (+/- 6degrees) between the windlass and the bow roller.  I could have just glued a few pieces of plywood together, epoxied it up and called it a day, but I wanted something that looked like it belonged there, didn't stub toes too bad, and still allowed me to keep both hawse pipes on deck for an additional rope rode that could be hauled on the capstan.  

As always I like to incorporate CAD designed parts where I can and the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking of creating a 3d printed mold that would follow the shape of the windlass. Initially, I was going to use the dimensions of the holes from the mounting template that is supplied with the installation manual and create a shape that approximated the windlass base in Autodesk Inventor, but my son (who is much better at Autodesk than I am) reminded me that you can import a scanned image of the template, scale it so the dimensions are correct in Inventor and then build the shape off that. So, that's what I did.  

I ended up sizing the inside dimensions of the mold 1/2" larger all around than the actual windlass base and then extruded the shape up 1" to make a mold that I could then use to make an epoxy and 1708 biaxial fabric part that could be machined.  Once I was satisfied with the dimensions, I added a bottom layer and sent it off to my 3d printer (Bambu 1PS) to make the mold. About an hour later, I had the mold in hand and went over to the shop to make a sticky mess.  

Because of the size of the part, I didn't want to fill the entire mold up at once to keep the part from going exothermic and cooking itself, so I did it in 3 separate sessions allowing each layer to partially cure before proceeding with the next.  During each layup I added 4 layers of 1708 biaxial cloth along with a healthy dose of West System 404 high density filler. I expect it will be plenty strong and much cheaper than 1" thick G10 plate.   Once I finished the layups, I let it cure for a few days before starting the machining.  The first step was to round over the top edges so there would be no sharp edges that I would invariably kick and stub my toes once installed.  I used my router with a 3/8" radius roundover bit and did it in 2 passes to make sure I didn't get any tearout from trying to remove too much material at once.  

Next I taped the template onto the routed out part and drilled out the three 3/8" bolt holes so the windlass could attach.  For the two big holes, I needed to use a hole saw.  Unfortunately, I have been using Lennox hole saws for years and have accumulated at least 12 sizes and a variety of collets over the years, but to my knowledge, they don't make metric so I had to settle on a 4" bit for the motor cutout and 2-7/8" for the chain cutout.  They were both about 1mm larger than needed, but shouldn't be a problem.  

With the main part completed except for sanding an paint, I took a template (actually the gasket) over to the boat and used it along with a piece of carboard to use as a template for the second part of the base.  This will serve 3 purposes:

1. The base plate (I have some leftover 1/2" G-10 plate) will be epoxied to the deck to spread the load across more area of the deck.
2. It will cover the old hawse pipe hole.  I will fill this hole with epoxy and cloth, but since it will be covered I won't have to make it pretty and paint the filled area.
3. It will raise the entire assembly up another 1/2" and make the vertical angle to the bow roller more fair.

I used the carboard template to cut out the shape of the G-10 plate and then rounded over the top edges with the same 3/8" roundover bit.  I gave it a rough sanding and then epoxied the molded part in the same orientation that I marked with the gasket template.  After the full assembly cured, I used the drill and holesaw cuts on the molded part as the template to cut out the holes on the plate.   

I was happy to find that my measurements were spot on and was able to dry fit the windlass on the part without any modifications.

After a thorough sanding with 80 -> 150 grit sandpaper I primed the assembly and followed up with a few initial coats of 1 part topside paint.  I won't do the final painting until its fully epoxied onto the boat, but I wanted to get some of it done so I can just apply a few finish coats once it's on the boat.  

I'm hoping we will start to get some warmer weather in the next week so I can start working on prepping the deck for install.  Think spring!

The red are the sharpie marks I used to trace the template onto the 1708 biaxial cloth

 

  

 

Government Silliness (Warning: Contains Bureaucratic Nonsense)

For six months or so I've been attempting to get Velorum federally documented with the US Coast Guard.  It's not a requirement, but I've always documented the larger boats I've owned for a few reasons:

• The boat needs to have the documentation numbers permanently affixed in 2 places and it makes the boat a little easier to identify if stolen.
• You don't need to sticker with state numbers (although you generally still have to pay for the state registration).
• Makes it easier to check into customs when arriving in another country. I currently only have Canada on my radar, but dare to dream!

So the process is just slightly more streamlined now than when I last did it in 2007 or so, but only because you submit paperwork online instead of through the mail.  Unfortunately, it still takes them up to 60 days for each submission (and each subsequent re-submission and re-re-submission).  It's a whole lot of waiting around.  

My attempts began last June when I submitted the original application.  The application included all the general boat specification details along with a bill of sale and title.  I paid my ~$200 and hit submit thinking how easy it is now that you can submit online.  On August 20th I received and email from the National Vessel Documentation Center (NVDC) and found no Letter of Documentation and only an attached 'Letter of Deficiency'.  Apparently, I submitted a new application, but what I didn't know was that the boat had been previously documented as 'Morning Star' in the 1990s, so I had to submit a transfer application, pay another fee (just for documents this time) and reapply.  

In September, I got another email from NVDC.  Another 'Letter of Deficiency'.  This time they rejected the application because the title did not have clear chain of custody from the originally documented owner to me.  Since the previous owner who was listed on the title had passed away and had willed the boat to his friend, the NVDC needed something legal that showed that the boat was 'willed' to his friend (who sold the boat to me).  

Fortunately, the previous owner's widow was kind enough to supply me with her husband's Last Will and Testament so I submitted that as proof that the boat's ownership was transferred legally (along with another filing fee). Wishful thinking, because about a month later I received yet another Letter of Deficiency.  The new reasoning for denial was because and I quote:

Our office is in receipt of the Last Will and Testament of xxxxx; however, a will by itself does not transfer property.  If the will went through the probate process and an executor or personal representative was appointed by the court, please provide a copy of that document. The document must be certified by an official of the court.

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV, so I really had no idea what that even meant.  I asked the previous owner's widow and she couldn't find any probate documentation.  And just to really stick it to me, the NVDC needed the bill of sale to be notarized as well (why didn't they tell me that after the first submission).  At this point I thought I might be reaching a dead end and would have to settle for state registration and give up on federal documentation. Except....

In the last paragraph of the three page Letter of Deficiency there was the following sentence:

Please note if the vessel is state registered or state titled in the name of (Me) you may forgo submitting the above document and submit the state registration to start the chain of title. 

So as a last ditch attempt, I contacted the friend (of the deceased owner) who sold me the boat and asked if he could meet me and re-sign the bill of sale and get it notarized.  He was more than happy to help and we met up at the Hanover NH town hall on an afternoon in late October and had a notary witness our signing. 

The next day, I went to the NH DMV and registered the boat under my name with the bill of sale and paid another fee (~$150).  The clerk at the DMV was confused as to why I would want to register a boat with only a few month left in the year when the boat wasn't even in the water. I just told her it was a legal thing and I had to do it. She really didn't care as long as I paid my money and showed identification.  I went home and uploaded the notarized bill of sale along with the new NH registration on the NVDC site and hit submit thinking that I had probably wasted close to $500 for something that was never going to happen.

Fast forward to January 5th, 2026 and low and behold, I got a real letter in the mail from the NVDC.  Before I opened it, I figured they were just sending me a real letter telling me to stop bothering them and to stop submitting things to them.  However, when I opened it, there was just a single page... The Federal Documentation! No explanation, just the actual document.  Anyway, it's all just silly that the NVDC allowed a state registration to trump everything else even though it really didn't prove anything other than the fact that I drove to the DMV and paid them money, but I'll take it.

 

Odds and Ends

Happy winter solstice!  It has been too cold and windy to do much work on the boat over the past few weeks, but I did manage to knock one small project off the list.  When I purchased the boat there was no sole in floor of the head.  It didn't matter for most of the refit but with the launch date getting closer (next spring/summer) it was time to put in a proper sole.  

I only needed a small 16"x21" piece of 3/4" teak and holly marine plywood, but I couldn't find anything that small and the thought of purchasing a full 4x8 sheet for $350 was just not an option.  Fortunately, a good friend of mine happens to own a boatyard and had some extra bits lying around from a recent project and gave me a nice chunk that would be perfect.  

Since there was a seacock and strainer in that section that would need quick access, I had originally planned on cutting an access hole in the panel, but I ultimately decided to have the whole panel lift out once I found some nice snap latches that would keep the panel in place until I needed access.  This ended up saving a ton of time cutting, fitting, and finishing an access panel in the sole and only required me to use a hole saw to cut out the latch mounts.  On the other side of the panel would be 2 'lips' that fit underneath the fiberglass so once I un-do the latches the whole panel hinges up.  

I cut the panel to size, installed the latches and 'lips' and brought it over the boat for fitting.  After a bit of work on the edges to round over the underside of the panel I brought it back to the house where it was warm and started varnishing.  2 coats on the bottom and edges followed up with 10 coats on the top.  On the top, I sanded between every coat with 220 grit paper.  All told it took me about a week to build up the finish to a silly level of shine (and protection).  

So that's about it for this year, but I'm already working on the next and almost the last project.  The battery power project where I tie all the systems together so I have a starter battery for the engine and a lithium battery for the house bank that will power all the circuits in the boat.  I had a system design in mind, but I decided to hire Owen Murphy from Meridian Marine to vet (and improve) my design.  He has been really great to work with and seems to be a happy medium between fully designing and installing a system (lots of money) and helping a DIYer with good design best practices so I can confidently install the system myself.  The really cool thing about Owen's business is that he is currently sailing in Fiji on his 34 foot Crealock, but he is very responsive and easy to get a hold of.  Stay tuned...

Just in Time for Winter

With the temps in the low 30s and a snowstorm in the forecast tomorrow, I decided it was high time to install new refrigeration!  Well, not really; I had been planning it for a while and originally thought I wouldn't get to it until the spring but a few weeks back I decided to put the mast rewiring project off until spring instead. 

When I purchased the boat it had an engine driven cold plate system that reportedly worked when the boat was last in the water in 2013, but it probably used the old refrigerant type instead of the new 134A and it just took up so much space in the engine compartment.  I just didn't want to deal with engine driven compressors, belts, hoses and a series of unknown 'doodads' that probably did something, but I was not interested in finding out.  So I ripped it out when I re-did the engine compartment with the plan of installing an economical electrically driven system.

I had a number of systems in mind but finally ended purchasing an Isotherm Compact Classic 2012.  It seemed like a good combination of cost, cooling volume, and ease of installation (the system is pre-charged with quick connects).  The nice thing about the 12v electric systems is that they can be located in a number of locations as long as there is sufficient air flow to keep them cool.  They essentially consist of 3 parts, a compressor that can be remotely mounted, an evaporator plate that lives in the icebox, and a thermostat controller that can be mounted in or outside the icebox.  The one caveat of the thermostat is that one side has a temp sensor capillary tube that needs to be mounted on the evaporator plate and the other side has wires that lead back to the compressor.

After scouting a number of locations, I decided that a shelf in the port lazarette behind the icebox would be a good location for the compressor because of its close proximity to the icebox, good airflow, and mostly out of the way location.  The only issue with this location is that the shelf is sloped downward toward the side of the boat, so this would have to be leveled (the compressor should be mostly level).

I measured a 19 degree angle of slope for the shelf that I planned on mounting the compressor on and decided to put the 3d printer to use by making 2 - 19 degree wedges with holes for 2 bolts on each one to mount to the shelf.  I used an extra strong print profile (15% infill and 6 solid layer walls) that should have no trouble holding the 15 or 20lb weight of the compressor.  I epoxied a 6"x12" piece of 3/4 inch marine plywood to the blocks and tapped the 1/4" bolts that will mount the assembly to the shelf.  Finally, I through bolted the compressor bracket to the assembly and got ready to install.

I'll say up front that this was not a difficult job, but I was worried about installing the evaporator and snaking the copper tubing out of the icebox and aft to the compressor.  The tubing is pre-bent in a coil and I couldn't help but think that it would be really easy to kink the tubing if not careful. Additionally, the evaporator plate comes flat and it is longer than the length of the icebox, so it needed to be bent. Fortunately, the kit comes with a bending 'dowel' that you screw down to a piece of plywood and use it as a form to bend the evaporator around at specific locations. 

Last week just before Thanksgiving, my son and I decided to tackle the evaporator installation.  We carefully carried the bent evaporator up the ladder to the boat and started straightening out the coil once we had it in the cabin.  First we fed the tubing into the icebox and led it through the hole (from previous installation).  Once through the hole it had to be carefully bent around a corner and through a 1.5 inch hole I had drilled in the bulkhead and fed up to the shelf in the lazarette.  This is definitely a 2 person job because the copper tubing is fragile and kinking it would be a very expensive mistake.  Once we had the the tubing roughly run to where the compressor would be mounted we carefully slid the rest of the evaporator into the icebox and secured it to the vertical walls with screws that ran through 4 plastic mounts that keep the evaporator off the wall by about 1/2".  

With that completed, it was time to mount the thermostat and capillary temperature sensor.  I decided that it would be easiest if I just mounted it in the icebox in an out of the way location above the evaporator plate.  This made mounting the temp sensor quite a bit easier than mounting it outside the box.  Finally, I ran the thermostat wires out the icebox and alongside the copper tube to the compressor location.  

The most demanding part of the entire job was running power. I was determined to make the installation orderly and not a haphazard jumble of wires like I've seen on so many boat (many of them mine).  I really should have done this before I re-installed the engine, because I had to run the wire along a bundle just above the engine and not easily accessed.  I ran the 10/2 duplex wire from the panel down through the battery compartment and over to the bundle that services port side power needs.  I had to cut most of the zip ties off the bundle and snake the wire through, re-zip tying along the way. Once I had it over the port side I ran the power wire alongside the thermostat wiring and copper tubing up to the compressor location.  There was a lot of boat yoga, but I'm happy that the wiring is tidy and well secured.

With that complete, I through bolted the compressor mount assembly to the shelf and then snapped the compressor onto the assembly bracket; the isotherm bracket is a nice piece of kit and allows for a quick removal of the compressor should it need to be taken out (still have to unplug wiring and evaporator tubing though). 

Next, I crimped and shrink wrapped the power wiring and plugged the thermostat wiring into the controller on the compressor (everything is nicely labeled).  The final step was to connect the 2 copper refrigerant lines that come from the evaporator.  I cleaned up my mess and insulated the copper tubing from the compressor and zip tied everything so there will be no rattles (and subsequent chafing) in the future.

I still plan on making a plywood 'partition' around the compressor so nothing bangs into it from the lazarette and no errant water spray hits it, but I'm happy to report that even though it was only 35 degrees F in the boat today, I started up the compressor and the evaporator became noticeably colder within a few minutes.

 

Catching Up

Regular life has gotten in the way of boat work and and as result I'm a bit behind with updates on progress.  Last week I finally came to terms with the fact that our garden shed was a mess and I was faced with the prospect of spending $10-15k on having a new one built on site or fixing the rot and rebuilding the existing shed for a fraction of the cost.  I chose the cheaper route and fixed the rot.  

With that complete I moved back a few of the last boat projects before things get too cold to work.  I had been putting off installing the hoses to both the manual and high capacity bilge pumps until the engine install was completed.  With the engine installed and ready to go, I wanted to get the bilge pump hoses installed so I could screw down the floors and complete the salon interior.  

I ordered 35 feet of 1-1/2" Shields Series 140 VAC Standard Hose for both pumps and when it arrived I put on my boat yoga pants and started crawling around looking for the best route for the hoses.  I finally decided to send the hoses aft from the pumps along the starboard side of the engine and then over to the port side behind the engine to the manual pump and discharge fittings on the stern.  

I had on hand about 10 feet of heavy duty sanitation hose and decided to make the initial connections in the bilge using this and connect the Shields hose for the run out of the boat.  The sanitation hose should last longer in nasty bilge conditions.  I double clamped the sanitation hoses just below the floorboards to the Shields hoses and ran them side by side aft.  A few hours and dozens of zip ties later I had the hoses secured all the way to the manual pump.  From the manual pump the automatic pump hose diverged and continued aft to a loop above the final discharge fitting where I double clamped the hose at the stern.  I installed the new manual pump (Whale Gusher 10) in the same location as the old one and fitted the hose to that and then from the discharge side, the hose met back up with the automatic pump hose to the stern fitting (the fitting is separate, but adjacent to the automatic pump discharge).  

With that complete, I was able to lay the flooring back down and screw it into place.  I hope I won't have to take it all back up again, but testing in the spring will determine how good a job I did. I'll be bringing all the cushions back over from the basement this week and should have a fully complete salon by weeks end.  

Galley Ho!

With all the engine work going on during the past few weeks I wanted to maximize the access to the engine compartment so I could easily access everything, but now that everything is completed (mostly), it was time to get the galley back together.  I was really excited about this because this job represents the last major interior project left on the boat and I've been waiting for the moment when I can look around in the cabin and not see disasters all around me.

Throughout the refit, I had been moving the galley assembly shell all around the cabin to work on other items, but had never fitted it.  It's big and was always in the way of something but I was pleased to see that re-attaching it to the boat was a simple matter of securing 2 bolts on a thick block of wood with 2 hinges to a molded piece of fiberglass flooring that is connected to one of the stringers.  It's really a clever arrangement that allows the entire sink and peninsula to hinge forward to give unobstructed access to the engine compartment.  I have never had a boat that allowed this kind of access.  This is a good thing considering I'm 6'5" and don't quite fit into many boat spaces.

Of course, it wasn't entirely easy because the sink drain, pressure water, and foot pump are all connected to the assembly and needed to have specific lengths of hose cut or they would be too short when the galley hinges forward, or too long and get too close to the engine which would be bad.  I shudder at the thought of the sink drain getting wrapped up in the vdrive when the engine is running.

Once the assembly was bolted in place, I started with installing the sink with a bead of silicone adhesive and letting that cure for a few days before moving it.  Then I moved on to the sink drain hose since that was the most cumbersome item that had to be routed to the seacock located just forward of the galley.  This took a bit of trial and error to get the length just long enough to accommodate the additional length needed when hinged forward, but not so long that it would be too close to the engine when closed.  

Once I decided on the proper length, I connected the hose to the seacock and routed it through the bulkhead and up to the sink using loosely fit zip ties to allow it to slide when the assembly is moved.  I also 3d printed a rubber TPU gasket/grommet that screwed into the bulkhead hole to help reduce chafing from vibration.

Next, I moved onto the pressure water system.  I completed the rest of the system last summer/fall (details here), but left an open circuit to the galley that could be tapped into with Watts Aqualok T-fittings.  To complete the circuit, I added an additional 2ish feet of pex tubing for the hot and cold water and terminated it with 2 more Aqualok 1/2" male adapters.  From here I used 2 6' sections of stainless steel braided sink hose to run to the fixture.  For the fixture, I found a standard household faucet at Home Depot and mounted it in the original faucet hole at the sink.  At this point it was just a matter of routing the braided hose from the Aqualok fittings alongside the drain hose to the fixture.  

The final job was to mount the foot pump and hose from the water supply to a dedicated foot pump fixture at the sink.  To do this, I tapped into the cold water line (before the pressure pump) with an Aqualok T-fitting and ran 1/2" nylon hose from there to a valve mounted in the engine compartment.  This valve allows you to switch the foot pump from fresh water to the icebox drain if/when the icebox needs to be drained.  From the valve, the line snakes up to the fixture at the sink.  This took a bit of thinking to get the best route but it wasn't too bad and access was decent.  

All told, this took me about a week of lunch hours and after work time, but I'm really happy with the way it all turned out and represents a big step toward completion.  Of course the system hasn't been tested so I may have some adjustments to do at the connections to make sure there are no leaks, but I'm not going to do that until spring so I don't have to winterize everything.