Owning a boat is a great experience. You enjoy the many days onboard and cruising. However, every great thing often come with some drawbacks. One of the worst things of owning a boat is that you are never quite alone using it. When you leave your shiny boat for some time in the marina or by the mooring uninvited guests such as birds sneak around and make a mess. In Alvor the summer season is the most intense given the seafood restaurants near the water leave their seafood leftovers to the seagulls. When the tourist season is over the restaurants close and seagulls move elsewhere to find food, the problem is much less.
I asked in a catamaran forum on social media how to best prevent birds from throwing a party onboard and leave there waste all over the place. The best answer was to use the boat regularly, but unfortunately that is not possible if you don’t live close by. So, instead I aimed for some bird repellers.
First option – lines
In a simple way we tried to cover certain areas of the boat, such as the solar panels, with lines going across. This didn’t stop birds from having a party all over the rest of the boat, or for that matter just walking around under or on top of the lines. This setup clearly didn’t work and required multiple hours of cleaning the 140 sqm deck every time. We had to come up with something new.
Second option – ultrasonic bird repellers
Loving technology you always seek solutions where tech would help you reach your objective. I was recommended to use four Bird-X Solar Yard Gard units to cover the full deck. Not only was the solution supposed to be solar powered but also easy to install and non-intrusive to humans. This solution proved to be great, for like a day or two. After that the seagulls were partying like never before, even being entertained and curious what these solar powered units were, blinking and beeping and all.. This solution I do not recommend as it failed miserably. We again had to come up with something new..
Third option – a yacht-wide net
The last and final option was to physically block the seagulls from accessing any of the deck space. How to do that? One could build an entire house around S/Y Tossan, but the only feasible way was to cover here in a yacht-wide net. We bought a big roll of bird net, 4 x 100 meters, and got going. The final result is an entirely net covered S/Y Tossan which you can easily walk under. This solution has proven to work and no seagull are throwing any parties onboard anymore. Our humble recommendation, although a bit extreme, is if you are having this same issue just get a huge net and cover your boat up.
Please see photos and videos below.
