The Dodger: A Gentleman's "B"



I finished the sewing for the dodger on Saturday, but didn't have the nerve (and the snaps) to try to fit it to the boat until today.  The most difficult aspect of the process of patterning and sewing is that you have little sense of whether you're accurate enough until the end.  The very end.

Today, under warm sun, I installed the snaps (every 4 inches) and studs, working from the front and moving around 1 snap on each side at first, then a pair at a time.  They all went in securely and easily.
I set the snaps in the canvas by hand, rather than with a fancy snap tool, but it went ok.


The straps I will set to the forward jamb cleats in the cockpit, the forward most hardware that exists in the cockpit.  The angle is slightly acute (less strong), but the whole assembly seems to be plenty strong enough, and not too difficult to move around in order to gain access to the foredeck.


I am thinking about how to do an extension (about 24 inches) aft from the aft bow, to increase the rain protection.  I installed a long zipper the length of the tails on the dodger in anticipation of this possibility.  I'll use a collapsable tent pole to spring the aft edge and keep the whole thing taut.

The sewing was challenging.  The SailRite LZ1 is about the lowest level of machine competent to do the sort of sewing called for.  The walking foot is essential to feeding through multiple layers of canvas, window vinyl, and leather, without skipping stitches.  The problem comes when you have to feed an unwieldy 9 foot assemblage and keep it feeding past the needle evenly so stitches are straight, fair, and even.  I failed in this objective many times, and the result is drunken stitchlines or worse.

I improved as the process went on, but it is hard to do 20 feet or more of curvaceous top stitching at a go without making mistakes.  More experience and talent would help here, but the whole process would be far easier with a larger sewing surface that is smooth, slick, and easy to maneuver the work on.  My side table is a mere 2 feet by 6.  Four feet by eight would much better and twice that would not be excessive.  A dining room table might work for an exceptionally talented sewer, but that ain't me.

The video from SailRite was excellent. There were points where things might have been clearer, but over all, it was very good, and essential, really.  I don't know how one could do the job without it.

The folks at King Marine Canvas were very good to me.  The got me materials in a timely fashion and a good price, and their expertise at frame design and construction really worked well for me.  No one will mistake my workmanship for a professional's, but I am very pleased with the result, and it passes muster for the "50 foot boat" test -- looks good from 50 feet.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting a Chart Plotter, VHF, AIS Receiver and Tiller Pilot using the NMEA 0183 protocol

Image
NOTE: An updated version of this posting that includes an AIS transceiver is now available here. Ripple's complement of communication and navigational electronics now includes: Standard Horizon CP390i chart plotter  Digital Yacht AIS receiver   Raymarine ST2000  tiller pilot  Standard Horizon VHF/DSC radio These devices can all be networked, so installing them includes making decisions about whether and how to connect them.  As with most everything on a boat, there are tradeoffs.  The benefits of additional functionality are always at war with the unanticipated dangers of creeping elegance and the instability that arises from proliferating connections (natural failure points). My four devices, like most modern electronics, can talk to one another using the well-established NMEA 0183 protocol.  NMEA 0183 falls short of a full-blown network, but it meets the need for point-to-point connections such as are appropriate to my configuration..  The NMEA 2000 protocol provides
Read more

Re-powering s/v Ripple

Image
My Summer, 2017 Adventure An irregular sound, a vibration untuned to the sum of your experience: this one was a momentary drop in RPM... 25, maybe 50 rpm. I bumped the throttle, right? Then it happened again, and denial shades into anxiety. The opening hours of a 6 week cruise: Seattle, up the inside passage, over the top of Vancouver Island and a leisurely meandering through the inlets that indent the west side. But this journey ended just as it began. A series of intricate diagnostic rationalizations, fuel filter and impeller changes availed us not at all. Lots of oil gone missing! Limping into Kingston Harbor, Ripple’s Yanmar 1GM10 turned the last of some 300,000,000 revolutions in my service. Broken-hearted 1GM10 Only slowly did I surrender the hope of rebuilding my faithful one-lunger.  As it happens, Yanmar does not make an oversized piston for the engine, as they enlarged the size of the cylinder when the 1GM transitioned to the 1GM10, and given that the
Read more

Installing and Networking a Class B AIS Transceiver with a Chart Plotter and VHF Radio using NMEA 0183

Image
In 2015 I purchased an AIS receiver for a trip up the Inside Passage.  This posting is largely an upgrade of the  posting for that installation . I suspected at the time I might look back on purchasing only a receiver as a false economy, and that turned out to be the case. I want to be SEEN as well as to see others. This year  I purchased a Vesper XB 8000 AIS transceiver to replace the perfectly functional Digital Yacht AIS receiver that I had benefitted from over the previous three seasons.   My decision to go with Vesper was based on the reputation of their product and their customer service,  and also because the device makes the data on my network visible via a WiFi gateway.  This should make it easier to pull off tracking and route data, and to display AIS targets on tablet or phone as well as the chart plotter. The XB-8000 also provides an easily managed anchor alarm, accessible by tablet or smart phone.  I won't have to sit in the cockpit all night watching the chart plotte
Read more