Boats will float all winter long

There will be two boats spending their winter in the Port Washington marina this year.

Harbormaster Dennis Cherny said Tuesday that one of the boats is the same vessel that overwintered in the marina last year.

The other boat is owned by a friend of his, Cherny said.

“They’re buddies. They like it here,” he said of the men, who hail from Milwaukee.

The men, whose boats are 37 and 50 feet long, will pay $1,800 and $3,166 to keep them in the marina for five months.

They will also be responsible for their electric bills and will have to have their own ice eaters, if needed, Cherny said.

They may not need the ice eaters, however, he said, since the We Energies power plant runs throughout the winter and its discharge keeps the north slip marina largely free of ice. 

One of the owners, Tim Motel, who stayed aboard his boat last winter, will again live on his boat this winter, Cherny said, adding he’s not sure if the other boat owner will do the same.

Cherny said Motel will encase his boat in a type of shrink wrap, just as he did last year. That, he said, keeps the boat warm enough to be livable.

“With that shrink wrap, it’s like a greenhouse in there,” he said. “It’s actually kind of humid.”

Allowing boats to stay in the marina over winter has occurred twice in the past several years, although Motel’s wrapped vessel caused some people to question the aesthetics of the operation.

But Cherny said he has no issue with the men staying in the marina.

“There were no problems (last year),” he said. “They’re there every day. We don’t babysit them.”

The Harbor Commission recently said that they will not store boats over the winter in the marina parking lot, saying it’s an impractical measure.