Bad choice

[Bolo]

A Maryland mud wasp made a bad choice when it picked my port winch as a good place to start a family. Found it’s nest under the winch cover just days after I used it last. Minutes after this photo was taken it was gone with the help of a garden hose. Anyone else ever have problems with “stowaways”?

 

[Pete the Cat]

A couple times years ago, I had a bird family in the end of my boom cover. A guy on the dock suggested I wait a week or two and they would be gone. He was right.

 

[Kenneth K]

I had to sew netted fabric under my sail cover to keep birds out. It works, but the flies still get in.

 

[gabriel]

My pest was larger: Had a vagrant try to ‘build a nest‘ in my boat while it was in storage.

 

[Christian Williams]

...

I will spare the actual song by The Trashmen, which can live in your head for days.

A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird
B-b-b-bird, b-birdd's the word...
A-well-a mow, mow, pa-pa, ma-ma-mow, pa-pa
Ma-ma-mow, ma-ma, mow, pa-pa

But of course if you have no self control whatever: Surfin' Bird

 

[Prairie Schooner]

While we were on the hard a mud wasp(s?) had taken a shine to one particular thru-hull. I cleared it out 4 or 5 days in a row. Finally I put some blue tape over it. It gave me cause to ponder what about that hole and not the others was so attractive.

 

[Slick470]

We used to have those "mud daubers" really bad when I was a kid lake sailing in Kansas. An open box of dryer sheets on the galley table for some reason seemed to keep them away.

In Maryland, I've had a lot more issues with regular paper wasps making nests in the boom, under the spray hood, in winch holders, etc.

 

[jtsai]

This is mud duaber's nest from a very neglected boat. I am fascinated by the geometry, holes are almost identical in size and equal distance from each other.

 

[KS Dave]

Kansas lake guy here, I can confirm what Andy said before. We have LOTS of mud daubers (and wasps); I've detached nests from all over the inside and outside. I was reminded of this thread after spending a day recently dodging them all day.

Here's what I found when I first opened my Lifesling after buying the boat (it had been left out for several years).

 

[Christian Williams]

...

Say, do those mud dauber holes make you want to leap overboard? Start a barbershop quartet? Invest in Crypto? Sign that contract Satan keeps offering?

If so, there is a diagnosis, if not a cure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/08/28/trypophobia-tiny-holes-fear/

 

[Filkee]

If I don’t sail often enough, the spiders build little mud nests in my main and they all fall out on deck when I hoist. It’s good incentive to get out more often.

 

[Bolo]

View attachment 48037...View attachment 48038

Say, do those mud dauber holes make you want to leap overboard? Start a barbershop quartet? Invest in Crypto? Sign that contract Satan keeps offering?

If so, there is a diagnosis, if not a cure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/08/28/trypophobia-tiny-holes-fear/

I think that I suffer from “trypophobia” when the letter carrier (formerly know as the mail man) delivers all those bills that put tiny holes in my monthly budget.

 

[Tooluser]

I am fascinated by the geometry,

You may enjoy the Dover reprint edition of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form! Fantastic stuff and he addresses the geometry of beehives specifically. He addresses almost everything in nature specifically.