SeaGulls - Bimini protection

E

ecmark

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Well it appears my bimini has become the resting place for the local gulls - trying to come up with a good deterrent because these birds are awful messy - I've been told owls don't work - Cd's connected hanging across above the bimini is an idea but I don't have any braces or poles to attach too – my marina is down at the beach near the inlet so we do get some fair breezes at times and I don't want something that will blow off – and if its not attached then it might be too heavy so "sit" on top of the bimini…..any ideas ??

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Thanks! Ed
 
birds of all kind do not seem to like fishing wire strung across the general area, they tend to avoid the area in general if there are lines run horizontaly. if you can run some in the area around your boat it should provide some relief.
 
I have had success with stringing pennant flags across my bow and cockpit covers...the gulls do not like anything that is strung across their landing path esp things that move in the breeze...I string them from one front cleat to a bracket I rigged up on the VHF antenna to the rear rail flagpole...the flags move easily in the breeze and I have not had to clean up much poop at all for the 5 years I have had them...
 
LouC - great idea - and one that I could actually put together without a lot of hardware, it could attach to my side radio antenna then across top of the bimini to side rails - could work - I'll work on a prototype this holiday weekend when we're bringing in the summer (it is a boat isn't it?) - thanks for the idea - Ed
 
Vic33004 / LouC - I gave some thought to the fishing line but the size of the Bimini would have meant attaching a number of poles which would have had to been removed each time we wanted to leave for a cruise so I opted for a 60' length of banners/flags that I got online for 12.95 - (4) 10' pieces of 1" PVC that we cut down to 8' and a number of plastic ties - after a very, very good cleaning (removed 1 partial eel & 3 crab bodies in addition to way too much poop) we set up the flags in a "X" fashion over the Bimini and wha' la' not a bird in site - it didn't hurt that with the Holiday the red, blue, green, yellow and white flags looked festive and our guests could find our slip really easy - but now all of a sudden we've got people walking by taking pictures because its now the "party boat"....at least we won't have any guests leaving their "emptys"....next step will be to actually make a brace with 4 SS poles to make this easy to put up & take down - but still a great option to repelling nasty gulls!
 
If you are allowed to attach anything to the pilings, you could attach conduit to the pilings that extended high enough to clear the bimini at high tide and string the fishing line permanently from them.
 
I got the idea from looking at some of the fishing boats moored in our harbor and the ones with the flags did not have bird poop on them.....I also watched the birds land on various boats one day and noticed that as they land into the wind they tend to avoid anything in their flight path that can trip them up...gull sweeps work for the top of a bimini but my old bowrider has the big cockpit cover (too big for a gull sweep really) and they loved to sit on that thing and crap all over it...After getting the flags it became a non issue...I found that after some experimentation that diagonal zig-zagging across the boat works best...
 
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