When you've owned a boat for several years, things begin to break and/or wear out. We've owned our 1966 Alberg 35, Mystic, since 2012. We took her on a 6000+ mile, five year adventure, called America's Great Loop, traversing the Eastern United States. We've sailed every year we've owned Mystic. She's seen a lot. Each year we take on boat projects. This year we have quite the list! First in line for me is to make a new sail cover. I've repaired the old Dorsail cover several times, but it's time for us to tackle sewing a new one.
Rochford Supply fabric store is a place we've gone in the past for marine fabric. We bought 6 yards of Surlast in a light brown color called Sand. Rochford had a huge sale to offload fabric that isn't their own brand so we only paid $4/yd. We chose Surlast because it is water repellent but also breathes. We used Surlast to make our winter cover and have been very happy with how it has held up over the last five years.
We have a Sailrite heavy duty sewing machine and use it for all our canvas boat projects. We also have a Sailrite hot knife that cuts through fabric like a warm knife through butter. Using the old sail cover as our pattern, we measured out the two side panels that join on the top of the boom. We decided to adjust the length of the cover by a increasing a couple inches where it wraps around the mast. The old cover was very tight going around all the lines and winches. It wore through eventually and required a repair.
I added a strip of vinyl on the underside of the seam that lays on top of the sail to seal the seam from leaking and protect the sail from friction. There is also a section of vinyl at the base of the cover where it wraps around the front of the mast as well as a strip covering the edges of the zipper. I happened to have a stash of Lenzip #10 zippers that came from an abandoned 90 foot round cloth banner which had at least 100 yards of fabric and 30+ zippers. I have reused the supplies from this banner in several of our boat projects. We purchased Common Sense twist fasteners from Sailmakers Supply to hold the bottom of the cover together under the boom. We had a heck of a time installing them. The side that passes through the fabric and folds over to hold the fasteners in place we're too long. They folded into the space where the twist fastener passed into, blocking the opening. In addition, the twist side backing showed on the outside. We didn't like the unfinished look, so we decided to use the button style fasteners instead. Dave went through our stash of grommets and found that we had exactly nine Sailrite button backed fasteners that we forgot we'd purchased. The end result was clean and more professional looking like our old Dorsail cover. We'll save the common sense set for our dodger project.
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| Twist Side |
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| Button side |
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| First Fitting of New Sail Cover |
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| Vinyl strip around mast |
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| Mid seem attaching the sides |
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| Covered Zippered Front |
Overall, the project was easier than we expected. The Sailrite hot knife and sewing machine are great tools to have for marine projects. The cover came out very nice and the new color looks great surrounded by all the teak on deck. That's one more project we can cross off our list. We are excited to get things done and get out on the water this season.
