Sew, Sew, Sew!
As soon as we got home from the Christmas holidays with family up in Tahoe, we got to work. I had 3 covers to make in 3 days: outboard, hydrovane, and staysail foredeck bag. (I was going to make a 4th, a cover for the windlass, but aborted for the time-being). Each posed a very different plan of attack.
For the outboard, I planned to roughly follow the steps laid out in this Sailrite video. I wanted to deviate slightly and have the throttle cover be attached to the main body cover instead of 2 separate pieces like they do, and I had 6 pleats instead of 4. I got pretty nervous doing it because the cuts you have to make look like a REALLY strange star, and I guess it takes a little while to trust that it’s going to come out OK. I’m mostly pleased with how it turned out. In hindsight I should have made it a little longer, but all-in-all it’s fine.
The hydrovane is the most catty-whompus piece of hardware we have on deck (the windlass is a close 2nd). It juts in and out and is super asymmetrical. I thought about measuring and drawing out 2 different-sized boxes joined together, but that meant having lots of little pieces for tops, sides, etc, and sounded like a FULL day of work + possible frustration. Instead I took a piece of Sunbrella, wrapped it around the vane lengthwise, and started pinning. I kept it symmetrical so that I could pin with the right-side out and then turn inside-out for sewing. I was cautious at first, but after I did the first pass of inverting-sewing-fitting, I realized my plan would work. For how weird it is, it came out well. I call it “the worm”, but Harry seems to like it 🙂
My last cover for the week was actually the foredeck bag for the staysail. Sailrite has a very reasonably priced kit where they mark the pattern for you (score!) and have step-by-step instructions. I figured this would be the easiest project with little need for brainpower. Hot tip: don’t ever underestimate a sewing job…especially if you have to work on it in a boat. I got the 38″x45″ bag. This means my main fabric body piece was NINETY by SEVENTY-SIX INCHES! (that’s 7.5 feet by 6.3 ft). I was able to cut out the material by laying out a tarp on the dock, but sewing had to be done down below where I don’t have anywhere near that much space to work freely. Enter: Frustration. I fumbled around rolling up half of it at a time and tried laying the piece on top of two flat deck chairs that spanned from the counter to the stove (Harry’s idea). It worked…I got through it. Anyway, after finishing I had a big-ass bag. Harry and I got the sail into it with loads of room to spare, but it turned out to be too much. The bag was just too baggy, and further, when hung from the halyard was going to swing quite a bit as it had nothing holding it down (only up).
Modifications: I added folded over 1″ webbing that ran from the halyard down the back of the bag to the bottom. I took another piece, pinched in half, that loops around the windlass cleat, comes up and splits out to the sides. This let us cinch up on the halyard and lock the bag in place. I also took A LOT of fabric out of the body, but left the opening as-is. This gives us a more classic “duck” look and removes unnecessary windage. I am actually quite pleased with the way this project turned out. The sail is SUPER easy to get into it, but has a crisp, custom look rather than an over-sized frumpy bag.
Whew, all must-do sewing is now done!!
