FIELD

The invention relates to devices, systems, and methods that involve automatically lifting a boat cover.

BACKGROUND

A cover for a boat or other type of vehicle or structure will protect of the structure from elements such as rain, sun, wind, and debris, such as leaves, blowing dirt and sand, twigs, and bird droppings. The cover will be useful to protect a boat or other vehicle stored outdoors, or in an indoor storage facility.

Some boat cover designs, for use at an outdoor location, are held above the boat by a frame or other supporting structure, and may be incorporated into a dock or a boat lift that also supports and secures the boat in a position on a body of water. These boat covers may cover an entire boat. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,901.

Other covers attach to a boat directly and enclose an “interior space” of the boat. Examples can enclose and protect a boat interior by attaching a perimeter of the cover to portions of the boat and then elevating the central region of the cover to produce an angled cover surface to cause water runoff See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,105,931, 3,698,409, and 6,308,653. With many of these boat cover designs, lifting the cover above the interior space requires the physically demanding and uncomfortable task of a person crawling beneath the cover of a sometimes hot and often constrained interior space of a boat to place vertical cover supports in the form of poles, beneath the cover to lift and support the cover from underneath.

Past cover supports are simple poles that may be of a fixed length, possibly telescoping, or possibly spring-loaded, that are placed with one end contacting and supporting the cover, and a second end supported by a fixed surface of the interior, such as a floor or deck, and remain essentially static (of a fixed length) after being positioned vertically to support the cover.

SUMMARY

The invention relates to method and devices useful for supporting a cover placed over an interior of a boat. In a boat with an interior and having a cover extending over the interior and secured at a perimeter of the interior, the interior contains an automated cover support located beneath the cover. The automated cover support includes an automated extendable pole that may be remotely actuated to cause the pole to extend from a non-extended position to an extended position to elevate the cover.

