Mouse-proofing the dinghy

ONE OF THE ASPECTS of sailing that has always fascinated me is the wide range of disciplines involved. Sailing as a sport touches on so many other facets of social and scientific life that it’s almost impossible to list them all.

Perhaps that’s why sailing has always fit in with my former calling as a newspaperman. Competent journalists must know at least a little about a very wide range of subjects, and a whole lot about at least a few. The same goes for amateur sailors.

We need to know (in greater or lesser degrees, depending upon the kind of sailing we do) about meteorology, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, nutrition, cooking, engine maintenance and repairs, first aid, navigation in all its guises, anchoring, fishing, flag etiquette, the Rule of the Road, the restrictions on dumping refuse overboard, boat design, seaworthiness, tidal movements, ocean currents, ventilation, plumbing, knots and splices, painting and varnishing, electrical systems, sail design and repair, the situation of the nearest cold beer, and … I could go on for hours. It takes years to know even a little about the many subjects connected to sailing. That’s what makes it so endlessly fascinating.

And now we have to know how to thwart mice.

New Englander Carl Thunberg sails a Cape Dory 30 called Leona Pearl. He wrote an impassioned plea on the Cape Dory bulletin board the other day, saying:

“Our very expensive 11-foot rigid inflatable boat is riddled with mouse holes. Does anyone know of a reputable business that repairs holes in inflatable dinghies within a reasonable driving distance of Portsmouth, New Hampshire?”

And how do mice come to eat holes in a rubber dinghy, you ask? Well, many sailors in the Northeast haul their boats out of the water for winter. They deflate their dinghies and store them in garages or barns.

This doesn’t exactly explain why mice would want to chomp holes in them, but believe me, they do. Exactly the same thing happened to Carl’s previous rubber dinghy.

Perhaps Carl’s mice have discovered a new form of winter entertainment, sort of like a spooky fairground haunted house, in which you eat a hole through a layer of rubber dinghy, squeeze through, and run around inside the pitch-dark chamber until you have scared yourself out of your little mousey wits, and then you quickly eat your way out again.

Perhaps they have developed a genuine epicurean liking for salted inflatable fabric, or maybe the dumb critters are hoping that by creating the holes the boat will magically turn into a giant Swiss cheese.

In any case, Carl’s experience is not unique. Other Cape Dory owners offered suggestions from their own experience, the main one of which is to strew the dinghy liberally with a fragrant fabric softener known as Bounce. Rubber dinghies that have been Bounced seem to be immune to rodent chomps.

There are other methods to protect stored rubber dinghies, of course, including barn cats, mouse-proof steel boxes, and, failing all else, the use of hard dinghies instead of rubber ones. But nothing is as cheap and easy as Bounce.

I must make a note of it. I wonder if it works on seagulls?

Today’s Thought
Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts his life to one hole only.
— Plautus, Truculentus

Tailpiece
“And where have you two been all day?”
“Hi Mom. Daddy took me to the zoo and one of the animals had a full house and made Daddy pay $50 over the table.”