I'm ready to put my boat to bed for the winter. We have an enclosed garage to store her in, but I can't gaurantee it's totally varmint proof. I'd like to keep the sails lashed to the boom and gaff and nicely flaked, but I'm concerned about mice etc. getting in. Has anyone had problems with rodents eating dacron sails, or am I just paranoid? It gets cold here (below zero) in the winter.
Dave
They will not eat the sails, unless you leave a sandwich inside for they to burrow after (much like my ex-wife). They will attempt to make a nice nest or comfy home to ride out the winter in if you let them. Moth balls works on some varmints, but not all (I did have to divorce her).
Personally I don't like to leave sails on spars for storage, it usually places undue strains, presses creases and folds into them and you can promote stains this way. The most common method is to take them off of the spar, clean, then dry them and then neatly fold them to avoid wrinkles. Unfortunately this will leave fold marks and if you fold the same way all the time these will eventually become part of the sail. The best way is to roll them around a mandrel. I use 4" diameter, heavy weight carpet tubes.
Of course they need to be stored, but a simple sling at each end and hung from eyes on a handy ceiling works well, gets them up out of the way and it's difficult for little critters to get at them. My garage has quite a few hanging from the ceiling. To avoid the belly of the sail bunching up, roll from the leach to the luff. A loose footed sail will roll nice this way, but a bolt rope or attached foot will still bunch a little along the foot end.