Seagull deterent?

B

Bschless

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Model
Tournament 225
I just purchased a new (to me) tournament 227. My mooring is very close to a sea wall where there are a large flock of seagulls and cormorants. Last year my old boat got blasted with guano.

Other than a shotgun loaded with bird shot, does anyone have a tried and true method of dealing with these sea rats? Do the rotating wires with flags on their ends work? Is there a bird (owl, hawk,etc) effigy that will keep them away? Rat poison? Smelly rags? Any ideas?
 
A guy at my marina has a fake cat that moves due to the wind or waves. Not sure how well it works.

Oddly enough, I am in the middle of a triangle of pilings, but get little crap on the boat.

We do not feed the seagulls at my marina and are not allowed to clean fish at the dock.
 
I tied CD's to line that was strung from bow to stern. Birds did not the the reflections, cut down on the crap quite a bit.
 
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Used to have a large army/navy net over the topside of our old center console. The net will flap a bit in the wind. Have found it to be the most effective over the years vs other methods
 
I know this is a hassle but what about a cover? I originally had an off the shelf cover, hated it. So I had a custom 3 piece cover made. The front covers the bow to the back of the hard top, the back hangs off my rocket launchers on the back of my hard top and goes all the way to the engine. There is a third piece that goes on the hardtop and hangs over the edge to make it more water tight. It was about $3K but totally worth it because I actually use it. Because it's basically split in half, each half is half the weight of a full cover. I'm an old fart at 61, wrestling the full cover around happened exactly once and then I gave it away and got this one.

I can do pictures if people care.
 
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I used to use the rotating wire with flags and that was fairly effective but I lost a few of them in storms. I've found the spreading metal wire spreads work just as well and you don't need any wind to move the wires which seems to really help. I keep a few of them on my boat (a large on on the folded bimini top and a smaller one on the bow) and I rarely have any issues.
 
I was told that gulls don't like the color pink. If I had a bad problem, I'd paint the top of my hardtop pink.
I'll be mooring this year so I went with 2 8' daddy long legs, some pink triangle flags on a string (like the gas stations use) and some multi-color foil tape. Plan to put small pieces of the tape on the daddy long legs as I hear this works well. Plan to engineer it all so it is quick on/off and secure.
 
Bird crap on the boat just gives me one more excuse to walk down to the Marina with a few beers to “clean the boat”. Usually meet up with a few buddies with the same kind of excuses.
 
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A neighbor of mine up at my beach cabin has I believe a 225 Tournament and he tried just about anything from a cover, to an owl to this one contraption thing that has a bar and rotates, etc. None of them did much and somewhere I even have a picture of a seagull sitting on the back of his boat next to the fake owl that he put on there as the birds clearly seem to know that it isn't real.
 
My marina use this method. They nailed a 12 inch stick to the top or each piling and then attached a stainless steel wire from the top of the stick to the piling at a 45 degree andle. Birds do not even approach the pilings. Suppose you could modify the strategy for your boat.
 
If you can fab up a way to run a string about 6" off the hardtop and around the perimeter, they will never land. At the end of our pier leading to the ramp/dock, there is an archway (for lack of a better word) made of 8x8 lumber. They used to sit on the top of that and crap all over the end of pier. About 15 years ago I nailed two sticks at either end of the top of the archway and ran a string between them. The gulls haven't been back since.

On a previous boat, I had two bimini tops which they liked to land on. I bungeed two sticks to the sides of each bimini and ran a string between them. Same result!
 
Here’s the picture I was talking about. I believe I misspoke and that it’s actually a 185 or a 205 Tournament, but I certainly got a kick out of seeing this one day when I was rowing in from my boat and saw the seagull just chilling there next to the owl as it seemed like it didn't care at all about it. They have some weird bar thing up front in the bow that spins with the wind and then some "streamer" looking things in the middle and stern part of the boat, but as you can see in the picture the seagulls still just sit on the outboard. I spent the $80 or so and got an outboard cover like shown in the picture of my neighbors boat, as it's much cheaper than having to repaint the cowling and looks much better than having it fade over time.

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g0tagrip said:
I hung a dead seagull from the outrigger, that worked until my wife saw it.
Click to expand...
Good idea. Don't let the environmental police see it though... At least in my state.
I knew kids that would feed them french fries with ketchup and then substitute alka selzer tabs with ketchup. Never saw one pop but I guess it works.
Heard about the same with exlax. Works quick and makes a mess....
 
The Gull-Sweep works ok, but it sometimes gets knocked down by the birds. I tried a fake owl, but I swear they just made friends with it!

Best thing that works for me is trying some clear mono fishing line in a square or triangle around top between the antennas/rocket launcher rod holders, etc. I usually do an X in the middle also. This has worked great and they never land there. I was told environmental police might not like this method but I have never been questioned and the Harbor Master patrols by my boat daily.
 
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