Work projects are an ongoing “Honey Do” list that never ends.
Here is the boat without the Bimini cover on the flybridge.
Boat waiting for Bimini. 
When we were buying the boat we knew there were things that would need to be fixed, replaced, and upgraded. On of the things that was in need of replacing was the Bimini. The seller’s broker, Brian was very helpful in the whole buying process. We bought the boat sight unseen. We couldn’t check the boat out because we were buying the boat during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The summer of 2020. We were in the USA and the boat was located in Canada. To say this was a challenge is an understatement. The owner of the boat was talking to us via the broker. Brian did a nice job taking pictures, took us on a video tour of the boat, and answered our endless questions.
We discussed the replacement of the Bimini and if we could get the new cover made before our boat left Canada with our hired delivery captains. Brian checked for us and no one could work on the Bimini in the timeline we had. Since the seller’s gave us an allowance (credit) for the Bimini we thought maybe we could have it made stateside. When we asked around the marina where the boat would be in winter storage, the answer was about the same. No one could get the work done before we would leave on our Great Loop adventure!!
Okay…..Plan C in the making. We are used to doing things ourselves. Hmmm, maybe we could construct our new Bimini ourselves. We started doing our research and with the amount of money we were credited for the Bimini we could buy an industrial sewing machine and pay for some of the fabric as well. And hey! I was retiring at the end of 2020 and would need something to keep me busy. The old Bimini could be used for patterning the new Bimini. Even though the fabric was getting thin, No Problem.
Well, don’t you know, that the Angels had other plans. When the boat was being delivered the boat ran into bad weather on Lake Huron. The captain said that they got hit by a microburst and took out the already weakened front panel of the Bimini. The fabric didn’t stand a chance. Okay….well….that will just add another wrinkle to the project. Looks pretty bad in the pictures, don’t you think?
We carefully removed the old cover from the boat, trying to make marks and notes to ourselves so we knew what went where. Michael spent many hours using a seam ripper to disassemble the old cover to make our patterns. We know he went through at least three seam rippers in the process. Using tape and staples he painstakingly worked on getting the front panel that was shredded into a useable pattern piece. He said he felt like an archeologist reconstructing the dead sea scrolls. I was in awe of his patience and how well he was able to get the panel into a condition that we could make a pattern.
We went onto the computer and looked for guidance on how to construct our Bimini. We found a series of videos from the Sailrite people that had step-by-step videos on how to make a new Bimini cover. I watched the videos until I could almost tell you what the next clip was going to be about. I made copious notes and Michael made a mock up of the Bimini cover out of paper so we could keep track of how the final cover would be constructed.
We made our patterns out of rosin paper because it was stiff enough to hold up to abuse of trying to manage long pieces of fabric that would be cut out on the floor and then sewn together on our dining room table. We got a hot knife that was recommended to cut the Sunbrella fabric and would prevent the cut edges from fraying. One of the things we lucked out on was that we got the exact same fabric that the old Bimini was made from. The old piece you could feel had become thread bare while the new fabric had a heft to it. Sunbrella fabric doesn’t fade it just slowly thins out with age! We wanted the same fabric because the enclosures for the flybridge and the aft deck had the fabric around the perimeter of the Strataglass and we wanted the fabrics to blend and have a cohesive look. Who knew that Sunbrella had the same fabric after all this time?
It took us several months of disassembling, patterning, cutting the fabric, and finally sewing the panels together, to finish our project and end up with a beautiful new Bimini cover. The Sailrite LSZ-1 was a great machine to accomplish a professional looking job. We ended up with a new Bimini cover and we replaced two of the Stratraglass enclosure panels that got cracked when the cover got destroyed in the microburst. We were very proud of the job we did. Our only apprehension was……will it fit?
Having to wait almost three months to see if the Bimini fit, we were so thrilled when it did!!! Whoot! Whoot! We did a great job! A testimony to perseverance and taking things one step at a time.
