Rat Discs that "Spin"

With Flirtie officially port bound and with our return to the UK pretty imminent we thought we'd better make a start on our "close-down" jobs list and this year there are a few extra items... all because of Mr Ratty!

Whilst we haven't seen any recent evidence that rats are here it pays to stay vigilant! Flirtie will be left afloat Med-moored about 2 meters from the jetty held in place by a number of ropes some of which are tied to the jetty. As we mentioned in a previous blog, rats are extremely intelligent and very athletic so walking these ropes is like a walk in the park for them.

Whilst there is no sure way of stopping them "walking the tightrope", what we're looking to do is make it a little harder for them. Rat shields have been mentioned and marketed in many of the sailing magazines for years https://www.yachtsee.com/offboard.htm but up until now we have ignored them. Like most things for boats, they are not cheap so we're looking to fashion our own.


Yachtsee.com OFFboard Rat Shields


Force4 Anti-Rat Cone

A trip to the local brico-centre (B&Q or Leroy Merlin ;-) for those of you back home) sorted us out with a couple of plant pot bases and a trip to the local chandler provided us with a couple of nylon skin fittings.

Back at the boat it was just a matter of drilling a hole in the centre of the plant pot base to accommodate the skin fitting and another hole at the end of the skin fitting for a length of twine to hold it in place.

If you take a look at the main picture, I think you will agree they don't look to dissimilar to the models currently being sold. Whilst ours are arguably more brittle than the professional ones, at about 0.95€ each I don't think we need to worry.