Magnets, Again

Swallows are such graceful and skilled fliers - they are a joy to watch.

But when we kept our O'Day 25 in a marina on the Chesapeake it was too much of a good thing.  The marina was host to a huge flock of swallows who, it must be admitted, feasted on the clouds of mosquitos, keeping them at least somewhat in check.

But all that consumption had a resulting consequence...  Each time we visited the boat, it was absolutely completely covered with swallow exhaust.  For us, that meant that after driving the entire width of the state of Pennsylvania, with two tired kids and carts full of food, etc...  Dad had to get aboard the boat and spend two hours hosing off the swallow exhaust.  It was discouraging for all involved, to say the least.

At Shilshole Bay Marina, there was a big flock of some kind of small black bird that pretty much left the boats alone.  Well except in late summer and fall when there was some kind of purple berry ripening on the bluffs above the marina.  Then they would migrate en masse to some boat out in the marina, presumably randomly chosen, to dump their combined loads of purple exhaust.  Like everyone out on G-dock, we were the occasional recipients of this largesse.

Wait... weren't  we supposed to be talking about magnets, somehow... right?

Bird exhaust on boats is not a problem constrained to the Salish Sea.  Even half way around the world, in New Zealand, the problem exists.  With a world-wide problem, you'd think that someone would have come up with a solution by now.

Well, it just may be that someone has.  The list of things that seem like they should work, but actually do not is long and varied. And, it seems that Viki on s/v Wildwood in New Zealand has tried most of them, to little or no effect.

Until she hit on magnets.  Yes, magnets.

I'm not going to steal her thunder; it's her story to tell - read it here..  My purpose is to make her story known, and to ask whether others have tried her solution, or are willing to.  But as a teaser, here are two pictures I linked to from her blog post:

One week after cleaning; no magnets

One week after cleaning, with magnets

Magnets, Again