Projects

Starting a Sewing Projects Page

by Kathleen

I have had a serious sewing habit all of my life, so imagine my delight when, upon taking up sailing with Matthew, I discovered that boats have unlimited potential for sewing projects! Since my first winch-covers for Penny, I have upgraded my sewing machine to a Sailrite, and learned about all kinds of fabrics and threads suitable for boat projects. I also joined boat-sewing groups, and have posted a few of my projects there. Now I think it is time to start consolidating the pictures and instructions to share with other boat-sewers and to leave myself a trail to follow, should I ever want to repeat a project. Here goes, in no particular order:

Christmas Gifts for the Captain:

His own personalized shopping bag, just for the fun of it. My sister-in-law has an embroidery machine, and is always willing to help out with my projects.

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Quilting Practice:

I plan to make Matthew a “Runner’s Quilt” out of all his running bibs that were previously proudly displayed on our refrigerator door at home, but must now fit on a boat somehow…making a lap quilt for him seems like a good solution (everything on a boat must serve more than one purpose)

I have only ever made one quilt, and it was many years ago. So I decided to start small, and using some leftover bits, made a sampler in order to get a bit of practice before launching into the big project. I was so pleased with how it turned out, I made it into a cushion.

 

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The Drogue Project:

That one has its own two-part blog with instructions, Part 1 and Part 2.

After the first season on the boat, I took it home to make some improvements. In order to fit in the locker, the bundle needed to be a bit shorter. It also needed some much more substantial handles. The final touch was to add its name in bright contrasting white letters, and a bit of reflective tape, in order to make it easy to find and identify in the kind of conditions under which it might be wanted. Here is the final version:

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Refit Part 3 – Fibreglass and Keel Work

by Matthew

Kinship has been “in the shed” for a few weeks and work has been progressing. The focus was to get all the fibreglass repairs done while the boat was indoors and not dependent on weather.  This is also the stage that Dixon was doing most of the work. Dixon has done a fine job of filling and repairing the wounds left by the removal of the radar and wind generator towers along with assorted other small parts that were no longer needed.

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The keel repairs have been completed.  As I mentioned, we had some cracking of the fairing over the keel joint, seen above.  The fibreglass was detached from much of the area of the joint and was not doing much.  The crack in the keel fairing is a few inches below the actual joint.  I am not sure why this happened, a mix of water getting in and a freezing and some movement in the joint.

We pulled out the holding tank and this revealed the lack of plates under the aft keel bolts and some minor stress cracks in the paint. The rest of the keel bolts have plates.    I ground away the paint in the keel sump, the cracks did not penetrate the structure at all.  The sump was reinforced with 6-8 layers of 18oz glass and epoxy.  Over-sized 3/8 stainless  plates have been installed to spread the loads.  The sump and the connection to the keel is now stronger and stiffer.

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Refit Part 2 – In to the Shed

by Matthew

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In early December, Kinship was moved indoors.  Loyalist Cove Marina built a new building for repairs and storage in 2013 and we are lucky to have access to this great facility.  The building is a short drive from the marina, so there are height restrictions on the road, but these are about the same as the door height.

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The building has 4 doors on the far side that are just tall enough to allow Kinship to fit in.  There are currently about 12 boats in various states, some like Kinship in for relatively minor work, others in for a complete refit. Working on the boat in shirtsleeves in the winter is quite the treat.

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