I'm in the process of having a custom made Winter cover made for No Regrets, and wondered how many of you would be interested!

Options are:  PVC or heavier duty Canvas. Tailored or cheaper Rectangular. Vented or not.

My feeling is, Canvas, Tailored and Unvented for robustness.

I can't see much point in venting the cover when the Boats closed up anyway...

My idea was to Winterise the boat, clean and polish the topsides, and once covered, forget about her until Spring, not worrying about the leaf droppings, bird poo and any possible water ingress.

She's a dry boat inside anyway, more so than the 2 year old Sports cruiser she replaced!

Subject to price, any takers?  

I think I'd be interested.

What sort of depth were you thinking about?  Fastened with a wrap-around rope just below rubbing strake level?  

If you're covering the pulpit rail, what's to prevent water gathering in the saggy-bit over the bow? Or are you thinking of having flaps which tuck through the stanchion rails and are fastened underneath?

Tailored has to be the best and there's no need for venting as it's not likely to be that air-tight.  I'm not sure whether to go for canvas or PVC though.  Canvas has a tendency to rot and/or go mouldy and does leak if you get saggy dips in the stretched fabric.  OTOH, PVC (and I'm assuming that you would want nylon reinforced PVC) does tear -- eyelets pull out and seams can split.  Oooh! decisions, decisions!

Just for information: last year we covered our canopy with a clear PVC tarp (we wanted it clear to let the solar panel keep the batteries topped up) and found it *really* hard to keep a soft protective cover on the stub of our VHF aerial to prevent it from wearing a hole as the wind pulled the tarp back and forth.  

I've just been looking at my photos & drawings of Nimue and I'd have to work out how to incorporate (or work around) our posh swivelable searchlight.

Good idea though.  Let me think a bit more on this...  

--Last edited by brianlj on 2008-10-21 10:12:37 --

I'm interested! As Tailspin's out of the water by mid November, I was looking at a tarp to cover mainly the cockpit area. But would cover the whole lot if the price is right. My only problem is the mast is on the front of the cockpit roof hence I'd have to put a hole in whatever cover I get then tape round to make a seal once in place.

I thought about the sticky-out bits:

The easy way to deal with the wooden mast is to fold it down, and tape some bubble wrap around it to prevent any chafing betwixt it and either the boat or cover.

The rooflights can be covered with the same, or a box.

I would suggest leaving the pulpit rails exposed, and tie the cover between them, leaving a small pool perhaps, but it wouldn't matter.

Depth wise, to just below the strake IMHO, the hull is not an issue...

If you get two seasons out of them, at, say £150 a throw, they will save the canopies etc, so good value.

Having seen what the wind does to sticking-up bits, I think I'd remove my mast and cover the bracket with a plastic block.

My roof light hinges backwards and folds down, but then it would simply stick out at the back.  Hmmm... I'm thinking cable connectors and a hinge with a removable pin.

If you have something like this, you'd have to make sure all our stanchions were in the same place. (Yes, they should be, but...)



but it would have the advantage that it would drain naturally in all directions.  I'd have to have sufficient slack for it to span the posh steerable light (too difficult to remove) but my mast is easily detachable.  In fact, in this drawing, I've removed it and my roof lights.

I'm thinking of a plastic box over the top of the light.  Something with soft edges so it doesn't wear a great scar on the cabin roof as the wind rubs it back and forth!  

--Last edited by brianlj on 2008-10-21 22:41:03 --

Problem is I've got one of those stainless masts attached to the roof and its well bolted into the fibreglass. Can't be folded etc.  Would'nt be keen to keep removing it every year. I'm sure a small hole to fit over it would be fine. Any water ingress would be minimal.

At that price i'm more than interested too.

presumably you have located a maker that would suit you for this job? I ask because there is a small boat yard here in Cambridge which has a guy with a canopy making business as part of it so if you were thinking of getting a competitive quote or two (once the specs are agreed) then it might be worth asking him as well

It's probably going to be cheaper if we get a number of identical canopies made rather than all different ones, so this is what I've been thinking about.

Mooring ropes.  Stern's easy, but the bow could be a bit awkward unless we've made provision for it.  Where do your mooring ropes need to come out -- side-cleat or bow?

Davits.  Some do and some don't.  I reckon the canopies could be made without slots, but with a pair of eyelets below where they may go.  If you've got davits, you could cut em yourself -- along a dotted line.

Rear boarding ladder.  Our ladder spans the rubbing strake and can't be folded out of the way.  The problem with putting a canopy over the top of the ladder is that you'd lose the tight fit of the canopy's retaining rope around underneath the rubbing strake.  I suppose you could actually pass the rope through the rungs of the ladder, but...

Side fittings.  Air-horns, wing mirrors, etc.  Tricky.

Roof-mounted solar panels.

Plus... I think that I'm going to have to pay a visit to the marina with some material and a pair of scissors to see how it would fit around the stanchions.  I can't help feeling that it would drain straight onto them and, as Brian knows, ours are prone to leaks.

[later]

It's amazing what you don't remember isn't it?  ;)

The front pulpit rail stanchions are set quite a way back (about 8" ?) from the edge of the deck.  It may be tricky to get coverage of that area.  It may end up as a separate flap covering the mooring rope.

 

--Last edited by brianlj on 2008-10-21 23:33:44 --

Last year I bought a blue pvc cover 36ft x 12 ft from 12V Marine for about £25. Securely wrapped up ST.KITTS for the winter but on one visit after several days of heavy rain found that I had now got a swimming pool stretching from the cockpit windscreen to the pulpit rail. I estimate at least 200 gallons of water. Since 1 gallon of water weighs 10lbs then I was not happy with perhaps up to a tonne weight on the cabin roof and deck. Only solution was to remove the cover, after draining off the water, and tying several ropes from the stern, over the cockpit roof and down to the pulpit rails in order to provide run off.

Scary weight!

Yes, fore-and-aft ropes would be very useful.  How did you tie the tarp down around the edges?  

--Last edited by brianlj on 2008-10-22 09:02:03 --

Luckily the tarp had eyelets, but with copious amounts of rope I made it look like a trussed chicken, or perhaps a Xmas parcel. It is the pulpit rail that causes the problem, you somehow have to have some means of support to hold the tarp up. I have seen some boaters use a wooden upturned structure shaped like a capital I but a tripod arrangement would be better than having it free standing. One boater at our Marina purchased what can only be described as a very large Gazeebo which together with scaffold poles worked quite well untill the strong winds came.

Quote :

untill the strong winds came.

Oh yes, we know all about what strong winds can do to insecurely fastened tarps!