cold weather and plastic windows!

[mistril]

I'm sure that nobody else would be as daft as me, but here's a thought during this cold weather.
I used the boat (LM 27)yesterday - the whole point of the pilothouse is to keep warm when you get these bright but cold days. At the end of the day, I removed the canopy to get a worn patch repaired (flapping mainsheet - doh) and folded up the canopy to a convenient size. My repair bill immediately doubled (tripled?) as the very cold plastic windows cracked. So now worn patch + two new windows!

Out of interest, do any of you use the boat with the canopy in place? I've always folded it away before setting off, but I'm rather wary now.

[stevespring]

I sometimes sail with it up, but mainly that's just on rainy days. I have noticed the lack of flexibility on cold days (i.e. around 0 deg Celcius), and have taken to not rolling the canopy away, but just folding it back to the pilot house roof and lashing the metal struts on to the rearward part of the pilot house grab rails.