Do it again

I picked up a length of Sunbrella for our new boom cover at Sailor’s Exchange in St. Augustine for the unbelievable bargain price of $8 a yard. The boom is 18 feet long but the longest piece of fabric they had in our color was 4.4 yards. No problem, I thought, I can piece it together.

The boom cover is an interesting design. There’s a rope sewn into each side, and those slide into slots on the edges of the boom. The ends of the lines are sewn together making two continuous loops; you pull the line in one direction and the cover pulls forward to protect the sail. You pull in the other direction and the cover is pulled back so you can raise the sail.

I pieced together two lengths of fabric to reach the 18 feet and made a lovely neat flat-felled seam, sewed the rope into both sides and finished the edges like my Mom taught me. And then I took the cover up on the roof to check that it would fit in the slots and be easy to pull on and off.

No. No it didn’t fit. The added layers of fabric at the seam made it too bulky to pull through the slots. True to Schulz form, I’d have to do it again. I got out the seam ripper and deconstructed the area where the two lengths joined.

I had to give up the idea that the cover should be perfect and figure out a way to make it work. To reduce the number of layers I eliminated the folded seam and the folded edge and just zigzagged the edges to keep everything flat and neat.

So perfect it’s not, but it does fit into the slot and slide beautifully back and forth. And if I hadn’t shared this little screwup and modification you’d never know about it because you’d have to climb up on the roof to even see it.

We made one more minor modification yesterday. We love our beautiful new cockpit table but it turns out the Starboard is slippery and we almost said goodbye to a plate that took off when we were waked by a passing boat. Jack caught it in time, but we knew we’d have to do something to save the china. Simple solution: a piece of leftover non-skid shelf material cut to almost fit.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to make some headway on the new jib cover. And I sure wish my champion-quilter sister were here to help!