Medway vandals

[kilkerr1]

Returning to my boat recently, I was appalled to find her defaced. It happens every weekend I go. Apparently, a group of local thugs had vandalised her by eating vast quantities of blackberries and passing their (very purple) waste products onto her deck, splash hood, sail cover, etc. You could hardly tell what colour her deck and coach roof were meant to be. The vandals in question are of course seagulls. Streaked with purple and blue bird s**t poor Santa Teresa cuts a sorry little figure. So 2 questions:

1) As prevention is generally considered better than cure, how do I convince the pesky blighters that my boat is not a trendy local hang out/meeting spot/public convenience? I've heard CDs work - do people feel playing Celine Dion loudly would deter them? Or would the more usual method be stringing them along some rope and alowing them to swing and flash in the wind?

2) Any ideas on the best way to remove blackberry stains from above parts of boat?! I can happily scrub with the best of them, but this is getting ridiculous...


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[neil_s]

Birds like to be as high as possible and don't like things swinging about just over their heads. So a bit of string rigged between the topping lift and mast, about 9 inches clearance and not too tight will stop them perching on your sail cover. Similar treatment is needed on the spreaders. The VHF aerial, if not offset too much will stop perching on the masthead. The pram hood is a bit more difficult to protect, but I have found that if you can stop them perching on the mast and fore-deck, they will go and find another boat. The CD's are good deterrents and old Tesco's bags do a good job fluttering in any breeze. As to getting the crap off the decks, all I can suggest is to keep sluicing it down to allow time for it to soften up before starting to scrub.

Cheers! Neil

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[Bodach na mara]

I came back to my mooring after a very pleasant two week cruise to find my dinghy plastered with the stuff. It had baked on and has gone like blobby hardened resin. I can see how to try to protect the boat itself using the ideas in other posts and the one about spiky things on the rails that was in a recent PBO but how do you do that sort of stuff on a dinghy?

By the way, I am going to try the spiky thingy by sticking some sort of rods through split foam pipe insulation which will then clip over the pulpit and pushpit.
Ken Johnson

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