BarrelRoll
Well-known member
A little back story. We live in Juneau, Alaska. It rains a lot and ocasionally snows, we have a couple 60' pine trees constantly dropping tree parts everywhere. Our old boat was a 17' alumaweld with a soft top. If you put a tarp on a soft top boat up here the snow load will kill the top if you don't build a structure to hold the tarp and keep snow off the soft top frame. Our first winter here (2020/21) we did the tarp structure, it was a royal pain in the ****. After that winter we bought a house, it has a 24x40' shop. The problem is it only has 8' side walls and is built on floor joists instead of a slab, not exactly easy to get to the boat into it. We bought a 20'x13' shelter logic boat tent from home depot for our second and 3rd winters (2021-2023). To secure the boat tent I filled 8 5 gallon buckets with quickcrete. The 17 footer barely fit with the doors off the boat tent though it was out of the weather. The boat tent would dance around a bit when the wind would blow hard till it froze to the ground. We ended up buying a 2nd boat tent to store my wrangler in as well.
The 20x13 shelter logics are in stock at Home Depot here for $949. Any other shelter logic gets pretty expensive once you factor in shipping. There's probably 200+ of our model shelterlogic in Juneau. They hold up pretty well for 5+ years with our wind and snow load as long as they don't get thrown around too much and tap the snow off after a big dump.
This spring we upgraded boats to a 2016 Duckworth 24 offshore. There's no way it would fit in a single boat tent length wise. Height wise the Duckworth needs 11' minimum, the shelterlogics we have are about 9' to the cross bars.
Of course I put off worrying about what we were going to do with the boat for the winter till a couple days ago. We spent all summer on the water, marine weather has gotten pretty rough so it's time to worry around finding a winter home for the boat. I couldn't put it off any longer. Next week they are calling for below freezing temps knowing my luck by the time my next round of days off rolls around the ground will be frozen for the year. The plan was to mate both 20' boat tents and give them a lift kit. October is one of our most rainy months so of course the yard was a swamp and I looked like a wet dog most days. The wife and I worked out some layouts. We wanted this layout of the wood on the ground though we would have been too close to lot lines to pull it off. In addition to the boat tent project we did a ton of yardwork we'd put off as well.
Here's the location we settled upon. It's a bit of a low spot and somewhat soft. The plan is to park the boat on some 2x12's this winter. Next summer I'll let an excavation guy swear at me for putting the boat tent up first as he builds up the driveway and removes the 2 stumps. The plan was a 3' lift for some wiggle room. My wife wants a bigger boat down the road as well so I was planning ahead. I used treated 5' 4x4's buried 2' with 3-4 bags of quickcrete per hole every 4'. 2 2x4's will tie the posts together. I hand dug all 22 holes, some were quick, others took a lot of baring and some roto hammering of roots. We live in a valley below a glacier it's round rocks and muddy/ sandy, the biggest rock I had to remove was about the size of a foot ball. I'm by no means an expert at layout. I set 1 corner post, put a string line running back towards the shop, put a 16' 2x4 with a level on it, found the location of the second post, continuing setting posts till I had 4 posts on 1 side. I used a temporary 2x4 on the back side with a level to locate the other post along with a long tape measure and the pathagrian therom. Once I had the back post set I set the front post and met it in the middle. It's not perfect though it's close enough for a flexible boat tent to mount to.
Victory, all 22 holes to depth with every post concreted in. Some of the holes were making water which made for easy mixing in the hole, other holes I mixed it all by hand in a wheelbarrow. 2x4's are attached, this will give a nice mounting spot for the boat tent. The day I did the last 6 holes it was monsoon grade rains. I had tried using some of the material I dug out of the holes as fill to level the area. It didn't work making a muddy mess. I'll scrape up the muck tomorrow before the tent goes up. All totaled I used 78 50 pound bags of quickcrete, 3,900lbs should help keep it anchored to earth.
Here's a close up of the building method.
Tomorrow the plan is to get the tents mounted and mated. As I was finishing up with the posts we had gusts up to 50mph of wind whipping through the valley. I'm hoping it's a little calmer tomorrow. I have to head to work Wednesday for 2 weeks. The boat needs tree parts washed off before it gets comfy in it's home. Our weather allows use of the boat year round depending on seas. Now that we have a boat with a full pilot house and heat hopefully we'll be able to get out a couple times this winter.
The 20x13 shelter logics are in stock at Home Depot here for $949. Any other shelter logic gets pretty expensive once you factor in shipping. There's probably 200+ of our model shelterlogic in Juneau. They hold up pretty well for 5+ years with our wind and snow load as long as they don't get thrown around too much and tap the snow off after a big dump.
This spring we upgraded boats to a 2016 Duckworth 24 offshore. There's no way it would fit in a single boat tent length wise. Height wise the Duckworth needs 11' minimum, the shelterlogics we have are about 9' to the cross bars.
Of course I put off worrying about what we were going to do with the boat for the winter till a couple days ago. We spent all summer on the water, marine weather has gotten pretty rough so it's time to worry around finding a winter home for the boat. I couldn't put it off any longer. Next week they are calling for below freezing temps knowing my luck by the time my next round of days off rolls around the ground will be frozen for the year. The plan was to mate both 20' boat tents and give them a lift kit. October is one of our most rainy months so of course the yard was a swamp and I looked like a wet dog most days. The wife and I worked out some layouts. We wanted this layout of the wood on the ground though we would have been too close to lot lines to pull it off. In addition to the boat tent project we did a ton of yardwork we'd put off as well.
Here's the location we settled upon. It's a bit of a low spot and somewhat soft. The plan is to park the boat on some 2x12's this winter. Next summer I'll let an excavation guy swear at me for putting the boat tent up first as he builds up the driveway and removes the 2 stumps. The plan was a 3' lift for some wiggle room. My wife wants a bigger boat down the road as well so I was planning ahead. I used treated 5' 4x4's buried 2' with 3-4 bags of quickcrete per hole every 4'. 2 2x4's will tie the posts together. I hand dug all 22 holes, some were quick, others took a lot of baring and some roto hammering of roots. We live in a valley below a glacier it's round rocks and muddy/ sandy, the biggest rock I had to remove was about the size of a foot ball. I'm by no means an expert at layout. I set 1 corner post, put a string line running back towards the shop, put a 16' 2x4 with a level on it, found the location of the second post, continuing setting posts till I had 4 posts on 1 side. I used a temporary 2x4 on the back side with a level to locate the other post along with a long tape measure and the pathagrian therom. Once I had the back post set I set the front post and met it in the middle. It's not perfect though it's close enough for a flexible boat tent to mount to.
Victory, all 22 holes to depth with every post concreted in. Some of the holes were making water which made for easy mixing in the hole, other holes I mixed it all by hand in a wheelbarrow. 2x4's are attached, this will give a nice mounting spot for the boat tent. The day I did the last 6 holes it was monsoon grade rains. I had tried using some of the material I dug out of the holes as fill to level the area. It didn't work making a muddy mess. I'll scrape up the muck tomorrow before the tent goes up. All totaled I used 78 50 pound bags of quickcrete, 3,900lbs should help keep it anchored to earth.
Here's a close up of the building method.
Tomorrow the plan is to get the tents mounted and mated. As I was finishing up with the posts we had gusts up to 50mph of wind whipping through the valley. I'm hoping it's a little calmer tomorrow. I have to head to work Wednesday for 2 weeks. The boat needs tree parts washed off before it gets comfy in it's home. Our weather allows use of the boat year round depending on seas. Now that we have a boat with a full pilot house and heat hopefully we'll be able to get out a couple times this winter.
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