One of the projects that was needing to be done was fix the binnacle caver. It had one or two rips in the canvas which I repaired by adding a piece of fabric to the back of it, then going over the rip with a zigzag stitch. The bottom of the binnacle cover was all mangy because, the fabric trailed on the floor of the cockpit. So all I did was remove a few inches off the bottom and removed the various straps as these were not needed. The resulting cover was a lot better. I saved the straps as I'm sure they will come in handy some time.
The next item on my hit list was the foot of the sail. During the summer it had practically disintegrated. The foot had been made of two types of fabric, the original foot, which a manufacturer had made, then the extra fabric that the previous owners had added. It was the fabric that the previous owners had used was just toast, as whatever they had used was just not up to scratch. There were also a few messy repairs on the original sail cover, so there was nothing else to do, but use the cover as a template and make a new one.
We bought the fabric from Point North (https://www.profabrics.co.uk/) just outside Chester. The total bill for the fabric, the thread and some lettering which will come in a later video was £130.97. From this I made, the foot of the sail cover, one lea sheet, 4 winch covers, 2 side panels and 2 rope bags. So not bad overall. Obviously there is time as well, but when you live on a boat, you need to be self reliant and practising and improving skills such as sewing, is all part of that.
In my initial design, I had several pieces that I was going to stitch together, but in the end I made most of the sail cover out of two pieces of fabric. What I did was reinforce where the lazy jacks were going to go come out and just made a zip like section. We then cut the fabric with a hot knife, heated on the gas stove. It really sealed the fabric. Using a lighter does the same kind of thing, but sometimes the flames, get away from you and you end up with a crocked edge, but that is what I used inside the cover where nobody will see it. Using a domestic sewing machine like I did, meant that I struggled in some bits, so I had to use the palm. I even had to use the pliers in some sections, where I had multiple pieces of fabric.
In the end it was all done. I have to say that although it is not a professional job, I am quite pleased with the result.
