Winter Covers

[Peppy]

Had a real good day yesterday! Calm for once, a beauty fall day. Let me get 2 BIG winter cover patterns. Always a relief.


Hi handsome!


Thats #1


Here's #2.


thats packing tape on center. The wind started picking up and thats to forestall the ripping of the paper. And 'Gorilla Tape' good stuff.


foggy picture. The camera got the sweats.

Black Topgun the both of them, tied to the toerail in #1 and the cradle in #2. I'll put the 'done' pics up when they're done in a couple weeks.

[bobbin]

Looking good.  Patterning in the wind is no fun and makes a nice fit nigh on impossible; good fit is important if you live in an area prone to wind driven snow and ice storms.  What are you using for the pattern?

We use a lot of Stamoid for winter covers.  It is durable and it sheds snow really well, important in our location.   I have a large winter cover in 3 pcs. to repair tomorrow.  It's a Fairclough, made of a very heavy canvas, and it's going to be a real bear... evidently a mouse decided to set up housekeeping in it over the summer.  Can't wait. 

[Mike8560]

when i was up north nobody had me make a winter cover.. thats where i started with snrinkwrap.

[fragged8]

i wish we had shrink wrap here, it's so expensive only big boat owners can
afford it.

I'm starting a winter cover monday for a 30' boat and it needs to be made in 3 parts .
i'm patterning with a blanket but should i fit 12' zips first or after ?

Rich

[bobbin]

Rich, I'm the "in shop grunt" in my present position.  I used to do work in the field years ago, but not for over 12 yrs. now.  But I well recall the frustration of trying to fit dodgers and side curtains in windy conditions.  Sucked. 

Winter covers we've made have always begun with the framing to support them.  I am in an area that can get considerable snow and so any winter cover must be supported well below.  If I recall correctly (haven't made one in couple of years now) the basic "blanks" for the pcs. required are put together in the shop based on fairly rough measurements made over the framing.  The connecting zippers are installed and then the blanks are basically fitted on site, darting as required, cutting out and around things like masts, stays, davits, etc..  I have no recollection of large pcs. of patterning plastic in my memory, at all.  I hope this helps you out somewhat. 

[JuneC]

Holy cow, Peppy!  That's a lot of brown paper!  I'm sure the cover will fit to a "T", though.  I just shrink-wrapped a boat yesterday.  Winterized it too.  All very foreign stuff in South Florida, but if a boat's going north, somebody has to know how. 

June

[Peppy]

I'm not sure Rich, I'd pattern it! But without really thinking about it...before? Fit is a lot less important on one of these. The customer sees it for 10 minutes in the spring and 10 minutes in the fall. Then all your mistakes lay hidden for 5 months.

Around here there are 2 (at least) schools of thought on winter covers. There's the 'garage on a boat' type, building a structure on the toerail and covering it with miles of fabric. Our competition does that very well. But some customers don't like building a small house every year 20' above the ground. And in fact the manufacturer doesn't recommend them for our area without substantial (read costly) beefing up, due to snow loads.

So, we've developed a concept of building very simple support structure over the cockpit only and the rest of the tarp lays flat on the deck acting as a barrier. Our assumption is that this spreads the weight of 4 or 5 feet of snow evenly over the entire boat instead of concentrated on the toerail. The cockpit structure is designed to let snow run off, and leaving an airspace for the boat to breath somewhat.

After watching our tarps for a buntch of years it seems to work. No complaints anyway (so far knock on wood). Indeed after a big wet snow there can be A LOT of snow stuck to one of those shacks. Although I haven't ever heard of one collapsing (knock on wood)

[regalman190]

Not many winter covers up here. Mainly shrinkwrap! It's cold and snowy up here!

[PDQ]

Oh, winter covers, yum.

Measure em. Piece of cake.  ;D

[bobbin]

That fits nicely, PDQ.  What's the fabric?

Most of the winter covers we've done have been for sailboats, gen. big ones, upwards of 34'.  Winter covers are expensive items, but properly constructed and cared for they are, over the long term, a less expensive than shrinkwrapping with a lot less environmental "footprint" than the disposal of plastic that is used just once. 

We will sometimes stitch the blanks together, but in more recent years have begun using a local resource with a heat welder to weld the runs together.  No stitching means there is no thread to rot on the longest runs where it's hardest to restitch!  We have one cover (stamoid) for a really big boat that is now approaching 12 yrs. old and is still perfectly serviceable.  The owner is very good about maintaining it, bringing it in the spring when the boat is launched, and then storing it where it won't become a mouse condo.   

Fairclough seems to be the big name in covers around here.  They're out of Connecticut, I think.  They use the preshrunk boat topping and they're really heavy.  A few years ago some ding-dong brought one in for repair that was wet... we made him take it home and bring it back when it was dry.   :-X

[baileyuph]

Shrink Wrap,

What's the dynamics of this, is the material merely wrapped tight or is there a vacuum or heat applied to get it snug to the vessel?

I have seen boats in shipment that appeared to have been wrapped, might be different?

Doyle

[bobbin]

Maybe June will chime in, Doyle, but I think the process involves a heat gun.  We had a canvas repair a couple of years ago that was a burn and if memory serves me correctly it was the result of a careless heat gun in the shrink wrapping process. 

[Peppy]

Shrink Wrap,

What's the dynamics of this, is the material merely wrapped tight or is there a vacuum or heat applied to get it snug to the vessel?

I have seen boats in shipment that appeared to have been wrapped, might be different?

Doyle

Here it is in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aObC2vyyAy4

Measure em. Piece of cake.  ;D

I need a tape measure like yours! Most times I measure a piece of cake I end up putting hair on it, turning it into an unpleasant experience. The tape measure I use is 60" wide and looks suspiciously like brown paper. ;)

[Peppy]

And done.

*sigh*

(thats a sigh of relief (not of contentment BTW))


the simple structure of #1. When I say simple I mean it.


#1


#2


#2 again. Indecently I made the one beside it 5 years ago. Ice tent that was....I miss that stuff...


Here's where I almost died. Ladder slipped and I fell off it. Thank god I had hold of the rope that was tied to the tarp. Only ripped out three of the loops. I'll be hand sewing them tomorrow I guess.....I took this picture to remind me why I hate f*****ing winter covers. Hey Bobbin and PDQ, they're all yours. You can split them.


Did you know you could edit in photobucket? I didn't!


The shrinky-dink boattop. The boss's awesome idea is cut up the shrink wrap to make the pattern for next years winter cover. Opps...did I say that out load? Shit...at least call it the Freddy.


Made this one last year.

That concludes the tour of Wiarton Marina. Thank you for coming! If you were here I'd pour you a beer! Cheers to not falling to my death!

[Mike8560]

Shrink Wrap, is the material merely wrapped tight or is there a vacuum or heat applied to get it snug to the vessel?



Doyle

the plastic comes clear  blue or a
white it is stable untill  it is heated with generaly a propane heat gun  and then it tightens ans shwrinks onto the boat. Unshrunk it's is a verry good pattern material

clad toy didn't fall peppy that could really ruin your day

then it shwrinks it is placed over and around the boat tied around the gull and strapped down once it's heated it Shrinks and tightens onto the boat.