Boat Cover

[sailingmonica]

Can anyone recommend a good source for a custom boat cover?

Boat is in Whitby, ON.

[Drumroll30]

Try Quinte Canvas Manufacturing www.topshop.on.ca in Kingston, they offer 10% discounts in the off season.

[YOG]

Hi,

I just looked at the Quinte site, it looks good.

Hope I'm not hijacking the thread.
What about a boat cover that is also a winter 'house' to work in?
Usually we cobble together a wooden frame & use a number of tarps to seal the boat up, but we're thinking of buying a contraption, with a rigid frame and possibly with transparent poly covering, if such a thing exists. And is not too pricey. We need to work on the boat all winter.

Ideas anyone?

[SabreKai]

Getting a custom frame and cover made is pretty pricey. What I ended up doing was building some frames out of conduit that fit into the stanchion bases, and then are tied together with a ridge pole made of 1x2 material. Secondary fore and aft strips at the curve of the frames 3 feet above deck level, and a few more from the last frame just in front of the cockpit to the rectangular frame at the aft end of the cockpit, to give better form to the cover over the cockpit. This is due to the transition from single ridge pole to a squared off back end so I have room to move inside. I climb in n out over the transom so that last rectangular frame is solidly bolted to the cockpit coamings.

I then use shrink wrap, which can be purchased at U-line. I figured I could get the job done this year for about $200 as opposed to the $485 I paid the local shrinker to do it last year. You also need some tools, mostly clamps to hold the plastic down before you shrink it, and a propane flame nozzle. All told about $100 for the tools and $200 for the materials.

On the one hand you have expensive but fairly long life (10-12 years) for a custom cover, vs cheap non-sustainable for shrink wrapping. I am hoping not to need a cover much more than a couple years so to me it makes sense to shrink wrap. It also makes the boat nice n toasty in the dead of winter. 50-70F on deck in the day time depending on cloud cover.

Sabre

[YOG]

Thanks Sabre,

That's a fantastic and comprehensive answer. I daresay we'll be following the steps to the letter, in a few months. I think we could just about manage it!

Best,

Yog

[CaptnBob]

Hi Monica:

In our area, CT, Fairclougth is a very reputable cover maker. They offer both in and out of water covers all are cotton canvas and use electrical conduit based frames.

FAIRCLOUGH SAILMAKERS INC.

They offer excellent ventilation, warm up nicely on sunny winter days, and routinely last for 10-15 years.

Purchased a new cover for my new Beneteau 373 in 2007, it fit perfectly and has been fine thru 3 winters.