Raccoons

We are sailing with two raccoons.  They are curious, smart, tenacious and have incredible manual dexterity.  Actually, we are sailing with one year old human twins.  Lars and Odin have inspired a lot of creative problem solving in order to keep them out of dangerous situations.  We aren't talking keeping them from the obvious risks inherent to cold water, we are talking about child proofing down below decks in our home.  Off the shelf child proofing solutions designed for houses just won't work on the boat.  I tried to take pictures of everything we've done to child proof the boat and will let them show how we've created a safe environment for our kiddos.

Looking forward on the port side (left) you see Odin's 'crib.'  The table leaves are bungeed together so they can't be moved when little boys are playing underneath the table.  Lars' bed is underneath the booster seats that are set up for the boys to eat, and it just clips up like Odin's.  The booster seats are attached to the ceiling material along the sides of the hull with clips, so when little boys start rocking they don't do a face plant onto the edge of the table.  Thanks to Nana Lynn for designing and sewing these cribs.  They work beautifully and we couldn't have done the trip without them!

Odin's 'crib' with access panel zipped up.  The green carabiner clips around the strap to prevent the zipper from coming down.

The master berth enclosure.  This is where the boys play most of the time.  It was also designed and sewed by Nana Lynn and again, we couldn't have done this trip without it.  It comes down easily when it is time for us to sleep in our bed!

The play area with one side of the enclosure down.

Ahh, green tape to the rescue!  This is inside the master berth, where the raccoons boys play and were getting into all sorts of mischief.  First, the light bulb in the lamp needed to be protected from getting chewed on or broken by errant toys, so we taped a yogurt container over it.  Second, the wiring is all exposed, it doesn't run behind the ceiling materials and little fingers were pulling it, so green tape saved it.  Third, the top slat of the yellow cedar ceiling material on the hull wasn't completely nailed in because there just weren't places to nail it, we never felt the need to pull the slats down even though we knew they were just placed there, unfortunately the boys just couldn't be convinced that they too could leave them alone.  Oh well, green tape saved us.  We went with green tape because eventually we won't need to worry about child proofing and hopefully by using green tape we'll be able to get it off without ruining the finish.

A net across the head (bathroom) door.  We do have a head door, but it is inconvenient to leave it closed all the time, and when it is folded back, it covers a gap in the master berth enclosure that Lars did fall out of at the beginning of the trip.  When the boys were on the sole (floor) at the beginning of the trip, they were very interested in chewing on the head itself, um yuck!, so we needed a way to keep them out of the head.  The net just slips down into a puddle on the sole when it's not needed and it works well.  We installed two brass rings (top and bottom) on either side of the head door and slipped doweling into it, the net slides up and down on the dowels and clips to the brass rings on the top.  Pretty slick and effective. 

Keeping the boys from climbing the companion way ladder was important, and cardboard and bungee cords so far are doing the trick.  We just cover the bottom most step and they aren't able to climb up to the next step.  The ladder is still usable for the adults, though it's not easy to skip that first step, and I dread the time when one of us comes down the companion way and forgets it is there, but we are very careful to warn each other when it goes up and we are very watchful of the other adult when the cardboard is in place.

The house bank switch cover.  Green tape didn't stick well enough, so we busted out the duct tape.  If little fingers flip this, we lose power to the house electrical panel and everything that is hooked up to it, like lights (interior and exterior), the VHF, the radar, the stereo...uh, everything electric on the boat. If the starter battery switch (red knob on right) were to be swtiched off while the engine was running, the worst that would happen is that we couldn't turn the engine off (but it could be done manually), if the engine wasn't running and it was switched on, the buzzer for the engine alarm would come on which would alert us that it was switched on.  It isn't a big deal like the house bank switch, so we didn't do anything about securing it (besides that...what would we do?).

My Raccoons.