Cover Recommendations

AQBill

Active Member
Dear Sunfishers,
I would like some recommendations on sailboat covers. I have been most pleased with Sailors Tailor covers over the years and they seem to holdup well here in the usually warm and humid south - although they are a bit pricy. I know there are other good ones out there so give me some of your thoughts.

Peace
 
I guess it would be useful to know under what conditions your fish is sleeping.

  • Full Sun
  • Under a tree with roosting birds and/or dripping resin?
  • In the water (I hope not)

PS: I have been happy with a cover made by Colie (www.coliesail.com)
 
DaveK, Not sure what dinghyone saw but I did order the cover from SLO that was a link thru the Intensity site. It should be here this week, I'll post a note after I see it, maybe a pix too. Mike 76274.
 
I can heartily recommend Fabricraft, Team Foxy, Colie and Sailor's Tailor. I did a lot of research and finally bought a Fabricraft for my Fish and it's a real beauty and Craig Thayer is great to work with. Have also a Team Foxy bottom cover which is great and I've seen the Colie's and they look good too. Have Sailor's Tailor Snipe Cover which has served me very well, too. Prices for a Fish mast up cover will run between $280 and $330. They are good investments, though.:D
 
I have owned covers from various manufacturers. For my sunfish, the ones that have lasted the longest and were the nicest were made by Fabricraft. They make covers from various grades of fabric. I chose to buy their most expensive and heaviest fabric. To date, I have never found a cover as heavy or strong as these. The covers were new in 1993 and basically still look that way today. The construction is super high quality and the fit is VERY tight. When I bought them, there were multiple design options like having the handle cut through the top cover, a mesh to allow the bailer to drain etc.

As mentioned above, the owners of fabricraft are great to work with. On multiple instances, they have listened to my needs and created custom products for by modifying their existing templates.

I can speak from personal experience of a few other brands:
Sailor's Tailor- The fabric has is nice. It seems to have some kind of a fuzzy material on the inside. That being said, the boat swims in their covers. It is a VERY loose fit.
Storm- Unless you get these free with your boat, they would not be my first choice. The fabric is paper thin and they do not last long.
Colie- Good quality, well thought out product. This is the closest thing I have seen to the Fabricraft covers, but I do not think they were available when I bought mine.
Slosails / Intensity - Seem like good value for the money.
 
Just storing the mast & spars under the cover may work just as well. The SLO covers, at $99 is appealing. Can the mast & spars fit under their cover?
 
I got a "Storm" brand hull and deck cover of very good quality from Vanguard back in 2007 they simply "gave" it to me!.........................Oh yeah, I had to buy a new SF to qualify.
 
If you take the mast down, the mast, spars and sail can lay on the deck under ANY hull bottom cover used as a deck cover. There are a couple of companies that make mast up deck covers, and mast down deck covers, but I find using the hull bottom cover is more bang for the buck and works just fine.

Obviously the cover won't be super tight fitting, but my experience is that it is tight enough to allow rain to drain off the cover. If necessary, you can usually tighten the fit by using the cover's draw strings, or attaching ropes to the cover's tie points.
 
Any problem with placing a tarp from Home depot over the boat on the trailer in my backyard between uses? I want to prevent UV Ray damage and keep dirt off the boat.....
 
Thats what i was planning. Its hard to buy a cover for $160 when thats about half of what I bought the boat for. I have a tarp and a grommet tool. I'll post a pic when I get one done.
 
hey I just caught this post.. I Just bought a Silver tarp. from harbor freight tools. It was 19x11.5 . I cut it in half and made two covers from it. I have two sunfish so it worked out perfect. Just cut it to shape and install some grommets and youll have two covers that should last you three years or so. For under $30. ( Tarp=25 Grommet kit $5. ) Make sure its heavyduty, uv treated, and that its silver to reflect any sunlight/heat.
 
Well, with all the snow we had, the weight pushed the tarp down into the cockpit where it melted and froze. Doing so, the tarp pulled away from the gunwales all around. The ice block was larger than the cockpit opening, but not applying pressure to the cockpit walls, so I had to wait for a thaw to break it free and dump the water. No water under the tarp to speak of. Maybe a quick fix would be to stuff a beach ball in the cockpit before covering.
 
Maybe a quick fix would be to stuff a beach ball in the cockpit before covering.

The beach ball would be quick and easy... would it keep full of air, though? I seem to recall stuff like that will slowly deflate over time, especially if it's out in cold air.

I currently have my Sunfish stored in the 2nd floor of my dad's barn with a fan on it - hoping to dry it out in the off-season. I blogged about it here.

But, for future outdoor storage, I had thought about using a piece of 1 1/2" or 2" rigid foam insulation, and cutting it to fit in the cockpit opening. That would solve the issue of the tarp drooping down into the cockpit, and prevent/deter possible critters from nesting in the cockpit over the winter, too.

tag
 
hopefully next year I'll have some kind of rack for the two of them to sit on, on their sides. And rails and a wench to pull them up off the beach and over the rip-rap.
 
I think you meant to say "winch"
12969_lg.jpg


Not "wench", right?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wench

wench - noun: a country lass or working girl
 
i thought my 3/8" wench was missing, but it was bent anyway. please don't try to return it.:D

btw wayne, i just finished the second varnish coat on the fish. i think it's gonna look very nice. the bottom is done.
 
Maybe a quick fix would be to stuff a beach ball in the cockpit before covering.

I made a tarp cover for my Phantom over the summer and what I did was make a PVC framework that fit in the cockpit and protruded above the deck by a couple inches - this way all areas of the tarp slope towards the edges and won't collect water. I didn't see any problems with snow this season, but we got little compared to most areas of the country.
 

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