under the big top

Jim posted a comment the other day asking about Spartina's boom tent.  Here are some photographs of it in use.  The tent is made out of white polytarp, three inch wide polytarp tape, double sided tape, some rope and bungee cord.  I suspect I got the idea from Duckworks but can't find the article right now.  Total cost was about $60.

The photo above is from my first cruise, a solo trip on Tangier Sound.  Below is from a trip with Bruce around Cedar Island in North Carolina (I still remember sitting there that evening listening to the dolphin swimming around outside the boat, I could hear the gentle spouting as they surfaced to breathe).
Those trips were before we discovered Alpine Bivys.  On those first couple of cruises, pre-bivy, we set up the boom tent every night.  It kept the rain and dew off us.  But it did not stop the mosquitoes (you can see the aft end is open).  And, if there was no wind, it got hot.  Worst of all, it blocked the view of the beautiful night sky.  It really wasn't a very good shelter for a typical night on the water.

Now the bivys are the standard shelter on Spartina.  They are cooler, keep mosquitoes out and at the same time you can look up through the mosquito mesh and enjoy the stars.  I've mentioned the bivys in several posts including this one.  But the tent is along on every cruise for those rainy nights and also when Spartina is tied up at a marina.

My friend Jim (not the mechanical Jim, the other one) from down the street helped me put it together one afternoon.  A bolt rope runs down the peak of the tent, the forward end connecting to the main mast at the goose neck, the aft end gets tied to the mizzen mast.  You can see the bolt rope in the peak in the photo above, plus one of the three grommets with bits of line that wrap around the furled main, boom and gaff.
Along the bottom edges of the tent are another series of grommets with bungee loops tied into them.  The bungee lines hook onto inverted fender hooks (available at Duckworks).

As I mentioned, we always have the boom tent along and set it up when the boat is tied up at a dock or a marina.  There is always some gear left on board and we figure it helps hide the stuff a little bit from folks walking by (the outboard is always locked in place and the valuable gear is carried with us up to the hotel room, but there are boat cushions, fishing gear, camp stove, etc).  Plus it helps keep out rain.  (On the Tag Team sail I neglected to set up the tent at the marina in Beaufort and of course a huge thunderstorm came through that night and I spent a good while pumping rain water out of the boat the next morning.)  Below you will see Spartina, with boom tent in place, tied up at the public dock in Oriental, one of my favorite stopping places.  

The heaviest rain we've experienced on board was on day two of the Crab House trip when we were anchored off of Punch Island Creek.  I did not a very good job of tensioning the tent the night before and we did get some water in the boat and one side of the tent formed a nice little pool of rainwater, but nonetheless we stayed dry and comfortable in the bivy's.  That is me below, a nice photo from Bruce, showing me getting ready to tuck the folded boom tent up under the foredeck where it lives during the day.  Bungee lines hold it up under the deck where it is both out of sight and out of the way.  (Some people say "How would we ever live without the internet?"  I say "How would I ever live without bungee cord?")

So the boom tent is always on board, but used only when needed.  I think I spent about 25 days cruising this past year and put the tent in place just twice, once at the marina in Oriental and again in New Bern.  But when sleeping on board I some how avoided the rain and did not need to use the tent at all while anchored out.  It is one of those pieces of gear that I'm glad to have on board to use when I need it, but only use when I really need it.

steve