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I did learn before I bought  A90  that the enemy of an Atalanta  was not sea water  but rain.

So off to Sturminster Newton and Hansons’ massive material warehouse.

Then bumping back down to South Dorset with a 20 metre bolt of Plastic Coated Polyester in the back of the car.

The dining/sewing room would not accommodate one single piece cover and neither would I be able to manipulate such bulk through the sewing machine.

In any event, I had planned, by the use of lacing ties, to give me the flexibility to arrange the cover/s  for:  Afloat Mast Up,  Afloat Mast Down, Ashore  Mast Up  &  Ashore Mast Down.

On my previous yacht,  a Victoria Frances 26 I had made covers for liferaft, boom etc.,  but all done using my grandma’s 1928 Glasgow built hand cranked Singer.

There was no way I could make these proposed covers for A90, single-handed,  so to speak.

Off to Portland to buy a Brother LX25 electric sewing machine  plus a ‘denim’ needle.

Right, now we were off.

The cover is in 4 sections : Bow, Forward, Midships & Stern.

As the width of the material was 145 cm I had to sew two pieces together to cover the beam for each section.

I did all this on my own, except when doing the long stitch that would join the two 145 cm pieces together. So my wife volunteered to help in material management as I sewed.

Once the sections were completed it was off to Steve Moatt, sailmaker at Portland for a reel of webbing tape  to make the lacing.

Solid brass eyelets were purchased from H.Webber at Dorking.

To get a good clean hole cut for the eyelets I bought a 15/32nd  ‘Round Drive Punch’  from C.S. Osborne.

All 4 sections are now protecting  A90  ‘Jenaka III’  – and have so far survived the winter winds !

  • 20211218_164711-36d82aa6
    20211218_164711-36d82aa6
    Brother LX2520211218_164645-55a004bf
    20211218_164645-55a004bf
    Sewing on the lacingsMakingSTRN2-0c01263d
    MakingSTRN2-0c01263d
    Lacing completedLacing-5c4cd943
    Lacing-5c4cd943
    Well and truly lacedBOW-303d33cf
    BOW-303d33cf
    Laced loops gave various cover optionssternCover-c8705dee
    sternCover-c8705dee
    Top of transom protected

One thought on “WINTER COVER – DIY

  1. I like the lacing idea, more robust than a zip. And more flexible.

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