Today I kayaked overr to my powerboat, blessedly on a neighbor's lift about half a mile away by water, and took out the drain plug. That completes the last task I can do this year on that boat. Put the winter cover on it a week ago, but couldn't get to the drain plug. SO much water in there -- it ran for a good five minutes. Really glad I emptied it. I forgot to take the battery out before putting the cover on, but I'm not going to undo the whole thing just for that. Hopefully the battery charger can bring it back to life in the spring.
Last night, on December 16, I reluctantly decided to winterize "Lark" since I couldn't see any days when it would be above 50 degrees (or even 45) when the wind would be in the 5-10 range vs. the 15-20 mph range. And the nights are going to be below 30 for the forseeable future, and the owner's manual for my Torqueedo battery says it can not be charged when it is below 32 degrees. I shut off the power to the boat several days ago, when it was to be below 30 at night, but since we're going to have days below 20, it made sense to remove this 42 lb battery. Which Tartan had put into a nearly inaccesable box under one of the bunks, and placed a strip of wood across so it was screwed into place. One of the four screws holding that strip of wood nearly stripped, so it took about an hour to just get that strip off, after which the challenge was to get the battery itself out of this nearly inaccessible spot and hook the six connections.
One of the other driving reasons to winterize was that I needed to take the jib off, since we'd had wind gusting to 25 mph and the jib sock was causing the boat to move on the lift, as it (and the mainsail cover) was catching the wind. So I dropped the jib, and then took the main off for the first time. And then took the lead-acid house battery out, too. And then took the pad for the berth out, which I found had a snap all the way at the bow. Which was wet from rainwater coming in.
Trussed the boat up onto the lift, increased the angle by which the bow is higher than the stern so hopefully we'll get less water collecting in the cuddy, and then lifted her a last time for the winter.
I'll look forward to March when I can take her out again!