SV Gallant Fox

The Fully Functional Propane Tank Cover

GB is so creative.  He's always coming up with new sewing projects for me.  We bought a small 4Kg propane tank in Mazatlan last winter to enhance our total propane-carrying capacity as well as to use specifically with the Force 10 BBQ GB mounted on our starboard stern pulpit.  We had been connecting the BBQ directly to the main propane tanks that ride in our aft lazarette, but with that scheme the aft lazarette needed to remain open, which has always mildly offended GB's sensibilities.  The new 4Kg tank is small enough (12" round, 7" deep, 17-1/2" high including valve and support legs) to ride astern closer to the BBQ, and can be connected without having to burn a whole tenth of a calorie opening a lazarette lid.  The tank is white and disc-shaped, causing Linda Erdman of Curare to remark:  "It looks like a giant Mentos back there."  It certainly does - and I'm happy with the Fox being the Freshmaker (TM) wherever we travel.

The tank would last longer, though, if protected from sun and salt.  GB said he wanted something that could keep the tank fully covered, yet allow him quick and easy access to the valve and nozzle so that he could hook up the tank to the BBQ whenever he wished, even for example if it were dark and/or he were already cocktail-enhanced.  He said it would certainly be a bonus if the cover could be removed and put back on the tank without having to go to the effort of disengaging the tank from the bungee cords that tied it to the stern pulpit.  Right.

All I can say is, thank heavens for Velcro.  I devised a Sunbrella cover that is sort of a rounded-top pillowcase with elastic at the bottom to cover the wee tank's body yet leave its support legs open for attaching to our stern pulpit with either bungee cords or rope.  Half of the rounded top is closed by Velcro when the tank is not in use.  When the tank is delivering propane to the BBQ, the Velcro is pulled open so that the propane hose can easily be attached to the nozzle and the valve opened - but the cover otherwise remains in place around the rest of the tank.  The cover need only be removed when the tank needs refilling. We've been using this tank to prepare scrumptious BQ meals throughout the Sea o' Cortez & while tied up at the Mazatlan docks.  Sweet.

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Cover for Cockpit Ignition Panel

Here's another sewing project made out of a trapezoid of clear plastic, bordered by scrap Sunbrella.  GB wanted something to cover the engine ignition panel next to the helm in the cockpit - mainly when in port to protect the instruments from blowing dust, but also to protect the panel from salt water if things got frisky and we had boarding waves in the cockpit.  Do Not Want.

The flexible clear plastic (the better to see the ignition switch and engine rpm dial) is 10-1/2" high, 13-1/2" wide at the top and 16-1/2" wide at the bottom.  The border is scrap Sunbrella trimmed with piping; finished width is about 1-1/4" but should have been 1-1/2" or even 1-3/4" to better accomodate the 7 snaps that hold the cover in place.  It's a very snug cover, it is.  I'm sure it will stretch some as it weathers.  Meanwhile it should nicely keep the dust and dreck from Santa Anas, corumuels, chubascos and the like blowing in to the cockpit and sullying our precious equipment.

It's unbelievable how much Sunbrella is riding around topsides on the Fox.  Heh.

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Memo to Self:

Sunbrella tears freely at seams and ravels aggressively at cut edges.  The thread holding everything together is always the first component to disintegrate in hot sun.  So when using Sunbrella for a boat canvas project, either triple-stitch the seams or make flat-felled seams.  The better to prevent Someone ripping apart one's finely-crafted designs when Someone deploys the geniker from its bag, removes ropes from the sheet bags, or raises the dodger for sailing to weather.  Hypothetically.

Yep, there's been some Sunbrella repair & rehab going on around here.  The dodger, for example, has had a lot of UV exposure and I've already re-sewn some of the original Velcro and zipper areas twice.  But there are only so many times you can run a needle through Sunbrella before the fabric becomes so full of holes it won't hold the thread.  The needle holes also seem to enlarge with general wear and tear.  So for the latest dodger repair - a zipper whose thread had deteriorated for a length of about 2 feet along the lower port side (somehow the port side has always had more sun damage than the starboard side, go figure) - I covered the existing needle holes with some semi-transparent sail-repair tape, then repositioned the zipper and its companion Velcro over the sail-repair tape, and sewed the affected area back together - single stitch for the Velcro as it was still in OK condition, and a very narrowly-spaced triple-stitch for the zipper since the dodger's design subjects this zipper to a fair amount of stretching and stress.  In repositioning the zipper I gave it a bit more room - about 1/2" - than it originally had - both because I wanted to sew along a portion of the Sunbrella that had no prior needle holes, and because I wanted to make the fit just a wee bit more loosely than before, to hopefully ease the stress on the thread and the zipper when the dodger is put back in place.

It's not the prettiest patch job, but hopefully it buys more time before we need to have a completely new dodger made - professionally.  I couldn't get a clear photo showing this repair job, so I'll just settle for sharing with those lubbers who are unfamiliar with sail-repair tape, a slightly out of focus pic of the almost-used-up roll of tape and what it looks like when its backing is peeled off.  Handy stuff, that - totally peel-n-stick, blends in to whatever fabric you have, seems to stay in place, and the adhesive does not affect the needle or thread when you're sewing:

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Son of the Staysail Burrito

So.

When last we left the staysail burrito, it had torn itself apart in boarding waves on the trip from Topolobampo southeast to Mazatlan in May 2008.  Oh, sad.

On the upside, GB rescued the staysail itself when it fell overboard, which is nice.  And I re-used much of the non-shredded staysail burrito fabric to construct the new cover for the Sailomat on the Fox's stern.  Always a success, when a girl can re-use $30-per-yard Sunbrella.  The Sailomat cover took 3 yards, more or less.  So I'm glad the fabric was already paid for.

While in Maz for hurricane season 2008, one among many sewing projects was to design a new staysail bag.  GB had certain ideas - chief among them being, NO external sail ties.  On the dearly-departed burrito, the seams affixing the external ties to the bag had held fast in the boarding waves but after several hours the surrounding fabric failed from the force of the water.  In the redesign - with GB's input - I built a bag with one piece of new Sunbrella, using a rectangle roughly 9 feet long by almost 4 feet wide, tapering to a little over 3 feet wide at either end.  82-inch zipper on top to close, with Sunbrella flap covering zipper for extra protection from water and sun.  Protective flap secured by Velcro.  Grommets on the bottom for ventilation & drainage.  Both ends sewn closed (like a duffle bag) per GB's desire to further prevent water and sun penetration.  Webbing loops on outside of bag - two at each end, on either side - to affix bag (not sail) to boat regardless of the bag's position on deck (port or starboard).  Here's what the bag itself looks like when it's full of sail, but not yet tied down to the grab bars along the coach roof.

Downside:  despite its size the bag is fairly compact relative to the sail it holds, so it requires sail ties (per GB's direction) around the staysail to compress it inside the bag; plus more sail ties around the outside of the bag to secure the bag (and the sail inside) to the boat.  Because the ends are sewn closed the staysail has to be pulled out of the bag (instead of having a zipper running the entire length of the bag which when unzipped would allow the bag to fall completely open, a design I thought might have been more convenient).  GB assures me that his design will not cause a problem when he raises and lowers the staysail.  He's confident he can handle both the staysail and the bag in the higher winds in which this sail will be deployed, and still manage the dozen or so sail ties that will be flyin' around.  I have my doubts.  I expect there will be a torn bag and a lot of lost sail ties in my future.  But then, I'm the pessimist on this vessel.

GB insisted on buying the Sunbrella himself, as he wanted to match the fabric to all the other boat canvas projects I'd done.  Alas.  He bought a "natural" color Sunbrella which is actually much whiter than the "oyster" shade we'd used for almost everything else, but what the hey - neutrals go with other neutrals, and after a week or 2 on the Fox it'll all look the same anyway.  I'm just glad it wasn't me who'd done the color selection.  We've also relocated the sail and bag from the side deck/bow area where the staysail burrito had ridden and where the force of boarding waves is strong, to the coach roof area aft of the mast, which hopefully takes on a lot less water.

But for now, as I look at the long, narrow, white bag sitting on the coach roof, that tapers at both ends, I'm reminded of a 9-foot-long...joint.  So the Staysail Burrito has transformed into the Gallant Fox Ganja.  Or, as I shall now refer to it:  the Staysail Spliff.

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More Things You Might Not Expect To Deal With While Cruising

You might expect a boat that never moves from its slip or mooring to have critters make their homes on, under or in it.  Mussels and barnacles like the hull - especially the nooks and crannies where no scraper can break them free.  Depending on the boat's location, sea lions, otters, muskrats, mice, rats and/or cockroaches prefer the deck and belowdecks.  Birds go for the folds of the sails and the rigging.

I'm surprised at how fast critters can infiltrate.  In our case, we'd sailed in to Mazatlan on May 27 and had actually been using our sails, so we knew no birds were living on board before then.  GB flaked and covered the sails as per usual when we arrived in Mazatlan and we noticed nothing out of the ordinary afterwards.  But, a mere 18 days later we removed the main sail for hurricane season...and out from one of the folds fell a heap of dried grass, strips of palm fronds, cigarette butts and cotton batting - seems a couple of mangrove swallows (like those little guys in the pic over there on the right, perched on the lifelines of the boat next to us) had wanted to start a family and liked the looks of The Fox so much, they flew up under the sail cover and into the folds of the sail to build a nest.  That's motivation.

I enjoy all birds, and mangrove swallows sure are cute little buggers - but they're small enough that they can compete with flying insects to colonize other small spaces above deck - like the voids in our boom.  I couldn't risk the birds rebuilding their nest even without the main sail in place; plus, nesting material can introduce insects to the boat, so following the example on a neighboring sailboat I used scrap Sunbrella to cover both ends of the boom.  Some boats, like the one pictured above with the green fabric, use webbing and buckles to keep the boom covers tight and windproof against the mast and backstay, but I just used drawstrings and Velcro.  Took 2 or 3 hours, start to finish.  Heck, these covers also help protect some of the shackles and rope ends still up there.  We'll see in a few months how well the boom is actually protected from critter invasion - heh. 

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The Air Up There

The tropics are hot and humid.  Many cruisers who live aboard their boats during hurricane season or other long periods tied up in marinas, make life a bit more comfortable by judicious use of good old American air conditioning.  Here's how it's done in Mazatlan, where most all the liveaboards run AC at least part of each summer day:

1.  Buy a small air conditioning unit (8000 BTU for a 40-foot boat, for example), in the dead of winter.  We got ours at Home Depot in Mazatlan at their December 31 end-of year sale.  Screamin' deal, man.

2.  Find a place aboard to store the AC unit you just bought, until you need it next June.

3.  Now that it's June & you're in a marina for hurricane season, pull out the AC unit & find a good hatch to hold it.  We used the overhead hatch in the saloon.

4.  Go back to Home Depot to get some 2x4 pieces to support the unit, some hose to drain the condensation off the side of your boat, and some insulation in which to encase the AC unit for maximum efficiency in sunlight and heat.

5.  Use lots of duct tape to hold everything together.

6.  Get a crew member to sew a Sunbrella cozy for the AC unit, the better to hold it all together and protect it from the elements.

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The Sun Shield

Funny thing about cruising in southerly climes.  The water is warmer and the sun is brighter.  Even as finely-insulated a vessel as a Malo has to expend more energy to keep cold things cold in its refrigerator.  Even if GB has already insulated all the voids around and behind said refrigerator, it will still have to work harder as the sun shines on the part of the boat's hull nearest the fridge.  A contiunuously running fridge can really deplete the battery reserves of a boat at anchor.

We learned that cruisers in the hot sun have a way of easing the fridge's burden:  they hang reflective material over the side of the boat's hull facing the sun, where the fridge is closest to the hull.  The reflective material is a standard reflective visor that drivers use to shade their cars' dashboards from the sun.  In Mexico, a basic auto visor sets one back about US $3 - the cheapest boat equipment ever.  We were so excited we bought two.

Some cruisers stop here and just hang the auto visor over the side of their boat.  Which appears to help.  Others, though, aim for even more energy efficiency.  So, following the advice of those more experienced in these matters - other cruisers and a Mazatlan refrigeration mechanic/boat engineer - I cut the two auto visors to 35" long (their original height of 23-1/2" was just fine), and stitched them together (to improve the overall R-value, I guess), then weighted the bottom with a series of five 2-ounce fishing weights, the better to stabilize the shield against the breeze and wave action.

But that's not all:  covering the auto visors with white fabric seems to protect them from the elements and improves their reflectivity, according to folks who have studied the matter.  We used what was available in town and bought ourselves the finest pure-white shower curtain US $13 could buy.  Cut it roughly in half and had a pice of vinyl fabric 37-1/2" wide and 52" long - enough to fold around the auto visors and stitch the sides closed, and hem the top with an inch to spare above the top edge of the visors.  GB set 3 grommets in the top hem so we could tie the finished sun shield to the Fox's hull at the stanchions and lifelines.  We hang a fender or 2 over the side on top of the sun shield to keep it in place in light breezes.  However, we've found that fenders alone don't keep the shield in place when the wind blows above 15 knots or so - still a few bugs to work out. 

Energy results:  this sun shield appears to have improved the fridge's efficiency in the sense that it allows the fridge to run colder, on a lower-energy setting does not have to run constantly.  We haven't crunched actual numbers to accurately determine our true energy savings, because daytime temperatures can fluctuate widely; we're lazy; other activities get in the way (like cocktail enhancement).  But I have seen that with the afternoon sun shining on the refrigerator's side of the hull and the sun shield in place, the fridge has an inside temperature of 34.3 degrees F.  It's chillin'.

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The Jerry Can Cozies

For someone who does not sew, I sure sew a lot.  I am the freakin' Queen o' Sunbrella.

So, in contrast to practically every other long-distance cruiser, GB opposed having Jerry cans with a bit of extra diesel fuel on board the Fox, because it offended his sensibilities of having a relatively clear deck unmarred by the sight of fuel cans riding by the shrouds.  He also did not want to give up valuable lazarette space to conceal belowdecks such an extravagance as extra fuel.  That is, he opposed it until he saw in a very direct way (1) how important even an extra 10 gallons of diesel could be on a cruising boat; and (2) how difficult it might be at times to get the boat to a fuel dock for a fillup, as opposed to simply dragging a couple of Jerry cans back and forth from fuel source to boat until the job is done.  He saw the light in Ensenada, when for 5 days straight, and right before we were due to leave, we had no access to the one fuel dock in town due to a succession of very large power boats taking up the fuel dock space and sucking up almost all of the available fuel, day after freakin' day.  Yep; GB broke down and bought two whole 5-gallon Jerry cans, with hyper-fancy no-spill spigots, at premium prices.  They fit in our lazarettes, as well as on deck if said lazarettes are full of "more important stuff."

Because these Jerry cans may sometimes ride on deck, GB wanted some Sunbrella covers to protect the plastic cans from salt and sun deterioration.  Enter the Pfaff.

Once again I used scrap Sunbrella for this project (at a Mexican price of US $30 per yard, every Sunbrella scrap is gold).  Some folks sew a simple pillowcase-type cover for their Jerry cans, but I had a spigot problem:  these no-spill spouts of our two 5-gallon Jerry cans stick up more than 6 inches from the body of the Jerry can, so a simple pillowcase style cover would leave a lot of excess material all over the place.  Instead I essentially sewed a box-like Sunbrella cover (open bottom, 3 narrow panels for top & sides and 2 larger panels for front and back) for the main part of the can, to which is attached a tubular condom cover for added protection of the spigots.  Yes; it looks slightly obscene, but it covers all parts of the can with the least amount of Sunbrella.  So there.

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Small Sewing Projects Made From Scraps

Certain handy boat items require only small portions of string, Sunbrella or sail canvas.  Examples:  gate pulls, winch covers, protective flag covers, protective strips for exposed Velcro, and cockpit pockets for lines, sheets or miscellaneous small items.

Gate pulls:  we have some pretty firm lifeline gates that are often difficult to open by the clevis pins alone.  We needed a bit more leverage for them, so I Googled "macrame" and found a very simple, 4-strand square knot pattern that fit our needs well.  The 2 inner strands are cut about 40% of the length of the 2 outer strands, with which the square knots are tied around the inner strands.  To ensure I would have more than enough string for a finished pull of about 4", I cut the 2 inner strands at about 8" and the outer 2 strands at about 20".  I'm smug to report that the final product - using about 45 minutes of time per pull and less than 50 cents in string including the excess - looks like what one sees for sale for far larger dollars in chandleries.  As long as you don't get close enough to examine the details.  Besides, the dirt that inevitably gets everywhere on a boat, eventually conceals minor sewing flaws quite nicely.  Yet another factor in favor of the amateur canvas worker.

Winch cover:  we upgraded the size of one of our winches, so the Sunbrella cover that had been provided for it was suddenly too small.   After 5 years of living with this undersized winch cover (sue me) I finally made the time in Ensenada to sew a proper size cover using the pattern from one of our other similarly-sized winches' covers.  The new cover comprises an elasticised inner cylinder sewn to a conventinal outer cylinder, with a circular top and a snap closure on the lower outer portion of the outer cover.

I used our nav station's dividers with their pencil attachment, to make a 7" diameter circle for the top piece.  I cut two rectangles - the inner one smaller than the outer one - for the inner and outer cylinders of the cover.  Because Sunbrella tends to ravel aggressively, I sewed all the cut edges with a zigzag stitch.   Used a 1/4" bungee cord for the elastic inner hem.  Lower hems were sewed at 1-1/2" and the top and side hems were 1/2".  Here you see some views of the finished product turned inside-out for a look at the hems and the inner elastic section.

Flag cover:  We needed a sun-protective cover for the US flag we fly on the Fox's stern.  Prolonged sun exposure when we're not actually underway, rapidly deteriorates the nylon of the flag - for some reason the white stripes are far more vulnerable than the red stripes.  Also, we needed to cover the flag because one of us objects to the sound the flag makes when it's flapping in the breeze; "It makes my brain itch," he says.  Therefore, in the interest of preservation of both fabric and domestic tranquility, I did a quick-sew of a cover for both the flag and its staff, using scrap Sunbrella.  It's a very plain, long and skinny, pillowcase-type design I swiped from a sailing friend of mine, Vicky Manning of the s/v Maloose and a very accomplished seamstress; her design is a rectangle sewed with a top seam, one side seam, and a hem.  Like Vicky's cover, I fancied-up our cover with a drawstring at the lower hem so that we could tie the cover to the stern pulpit.  Although I doubt that my rather snugly-cut cover could ever slide off the flag by itself. 

Come to think of it, the left of this photo of our new flag condom snuffer, shows the Sunbrella cover I made years ago for the handle to the outboard motor, after we'd noticed the sun was deteriorating its black plastic handle.  It, too, is made from scrap Sunbrella, but instead of a pillowcase style I sewed an oval top piece to a rectangular piece using 1/4" hems throughout.  I initially considered setting grommets in the handle cover and the motor cover and connecting the two pieces to each other; but frankly, as is, the handle cover does not budge.  Both the motor handle cover and the flag cover are sort of like Sunbrella Trojans, I guess...

Sun protection for Velcro:  I hate to admit it, but this was GB's design and it's a good one.  Our Sunbrella cockpit cover that came with the boat, is a marvel of engineering and the canvas worker's craft, and has long Velcro strips on either side of the dodger to which side pieces attach to fully enclose the cockpit in the event of a downpour.   (We deployed the side panels a lot, when cruising up in the Great White North).  Unfortunately, even up north where the sun is less intense, the Velcro deteriorates rapidly.  Actually, the Velcro's wool and little hooks stay intact -- it's their fabric backing that disintegrates, requiring all the Velcro to be replaced.  If only there were some way to block the sun...

Per GB's design, I sewed Velcro wool to two 1-1/2" wide (finished) strips of scrap Sunbrella cut to the length of the exposed Velcro hooks on each side of the dodger.  They stick to the exposed portions of Velcro on the dodger and cover them completely.  When they're in the way of full cockpit-cover deployment one simply rips them off and stows them someplace handy.  Bonus:  because they're backed with the same color Sunbrella as the rest of the deck canvas, when they're attached to the exposed Velcro they're completely unnoticeable.

Cockpit pocket:  to port of the helm, our cockpit coaming has an indent, presumably intended to keep lines, sheets or small items out of the way.  Unfortunately, there is no way to keep these items handy yet in place without some sort of fabric restraining device.  Enter scrap Sunbrella and some mesh.  Scrap Sunbrella and piping to firm up the perimeter of the pocket and fancy-up the finished look.  Elastic sewn into the upper edge of the pocket that failed to contract and snug-up the potential contents of the pocket as I had expected.  Holes punched into the Sunbrella edge to correspond to the screws in the fiberglass trim around the cockpit indent.  Elastic-design failure notwithstanding, it now looks as if we have something more useful for restraining loose cockpit stuff:

Moral of all these stories:  no matter how small the scrap, never throw away any of that expensive Sunbrella, Velcro, mesh, or piping.  You will find a use for it on a boat.  Eventually.  Heh.

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The Staysail Burrito

A full sail inventory for a 40-foot boat like the Fox is awkward to stow below decks, what with people actually living aboard 24/7/365.  What to do?  Most cruisers store at least some of the sails on deck, hopefully well covered.  We chose that route for the staysail that hanks-on to our inner Solent stay, so in late 2005 I put together a sail sausage that ties to the forward starboard lifelines.  Which ended somewhat suboptimally, in that the Sunbrella cover I made wraps around the staysail and the ends are sort of tucked in and made fast.  Thus creating a staysail burrito.

I can't even remember how much fabric I used, but it was a lot.  When laid on the salon floor, the almost-rectangular burrito fabric extended from inside the forward berth, through the salon, and into the galley area.  I wanted to be sure that none of the staysail was exposed to sunlight when stored on the deck, so the burrito overlapped the girth of the furled staysail by about 6 inches.  I cut the burrito's ends liberally so they, too, would overlap and cover the staysail ends completely.  To sum up:  I used a LOT o' Sunbrella for this project.

The only other ingredient in this burrito was webbing.  I sewed 4 long pieces of webbing to the back of the burrito, evenly spaced, to tie the burrito around the staysail and compress it to the extent possible.  On top of each of these 4 long webbing pieces, I sewed a second, short piece of webbing ("sail stop") to tie the staysail burrito to the boat's lifelines and stanchions.

Here are photos of the results, showing the partially-wrapped burrito, and how it rides on the foredeck, fully enclosing the staysail.  It's ridden there for over 2 years and a few thousand miles, without complaint.  Occasionally we need to re-wrap the burrito as it shifts during our travels, and we tied the tucked-in ends of the burrito with some spare sail ties to better prevent salt water penetration while underway.  I may need to re-sew the thread on the webbing at some point as the sun and salt deteriorate it, but otherwise the burrito seems to serve our purposes and is as low-maintenance as any other of our deck canvas.  Nice.

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