Hot, Hot, Hot!

The summer heat and storms have come early here on the west coast of Florida. Every day seems hotter than the last. We installed our tiny A/C unit in our companionway door and it has been awesome. It keeps the boat cooler and drier which makes sleeping so much nicer.

Last season we bought a couple of those cheap blue plastic tarps to fashion a crude sun shade for Wrinkles. It was amazing the drop in temperature inside the boat once those tarps were put up. We hated the noise they made whenever the wind picked up, but it was still worth it to leave them up. We decided to make a cheap sun shade this season which would be simple to put up, quieter than the plastic tarps and cover a bigger area. A 12' X 15' painter's tarp at Home Depot fit the bill perfectly.

We marked out a couple items like the mast and some halyards which would require slits or holes in the sun shade. This part of the process took much longer than expected as a large group of dolphins came to feed just 150' away from our slip. All work stops for Brenda if there is a dolphin in sight. Brenda eventually decided to get back to work and made those modifications and then made reinforced attachment points using sail repair tape and nylon strapping. Finally she re-stitched all the seams and edges on the painter's tarp with good UV resistant outdoor thread.

Bret (s/v Elusive) pitched in by rolling on some Thompson's Water Seal to make the sun shade at least a little bit water resistant. It was amazing how much of the Thompson's Seal the canvas sucked up. Brenda would sew up another painter's tarp for Bret and Theresa's Jeanneau as well.

Re-inforced attachment points

We installed the sun shade and it is working really well. If it lasts one or two years it will have done its job.

 

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