Sunfish Cover Repair and Alien Technology

 27 Jul 25:

It has been almost 5 years sine Hurricane Sally tried to wipe out the Armada down in Florida, but we finally got around to repairing the boat cover that saved our 1982 Sunfish MADISON. All of our boats were covered and tied down for what was forecast to be a Cat I storm with landfall over in Mississippi. Instead we got the dirty side of a Cat III that came ashore about 60 miles west of Navarre. We had a surge of near 9 feet with cresting waves in the backyard and the only thing that kept the boats from washing away was the luck that we had looped the lines through the cover straps. 

Here's a screenshot of the Armada afloat in about 5 feet of water...

The boats were stored similar to this photo.

MADISON's cover needed a few patches and buckle parts, and we had spare fabric from WAVE's old cover, which was mostly shredded. WAVE was the boat nearest the Bay, the surge tore her foredeck off and she began to float away, which spurred us into rescue mode. 

Here is the old and new buckle bit, which SLO Sail and Canvas sent us for free after we shared our hurricane story. SLO also sent WAVE a brand new cover, we appreciate their generosity and customer care.

Here's the new buckle tip installed, with the original buckle housing still in good shape. As soon as this buckle clipped together, I felt that all was well in our Sunfish cover world, and we were many more steps past Hurricane Sally.

Here is MADISON's cover, it is a "Spars On Deck/Mast Up" cover with strap/buckle option. There is an extra cut of fabric on the bow and over the gunwales to allow the booms and sail to fit under the cover We have had the cover close to 10 years and it is still in great shape, hurricane tested.

The next adventure was to replace the thread spool spindles on Skipper's Janome, which required the removal of about 15 screws of various shape and size in order to remove the entire back. 

I am convinced that sewing machines are derived from alien technology....How does all this work together to interlace a spool and bobbin of thread?