Sunfish Cover Repair

 11 Jul 22:

We put some patches on PHOENIX' Sunbrella cover, it had a few rips and tears from riding out hurricane flooding and storm surge. We had lines on the bow and stern of the boat run through the bow handle and straps of the cover, the Sunbrella did an incredible job of keeping the boat from floating away and took its own hits in stride. Here's a small tear, we put a small piece of scrap Sunbrella underneath and stitched over and around the tear with Skipper's Sailrite LSZ-1, set with a wide zig zag and medium length stitch. For getting a good stitch where the top and bottom thread knots are set in the fabric, not on top or below, the right needle, thread and walking foot thread tension are key. Sailrite recommends V-69 polyester thread (UV resistant) for outdoor use and a #18 or #20 round point needle. The walking foot tension is set by the round knob in the photo, we had it pretty high when working with multiple layers of a Dacron sail, so we backed it off one turn for the Sunbrella. 

There were a lot small punctures in the Sunbrella along the starboard bow, where the storm surge repeatedly shoved PHOENIX into a 6x6 post. We left most of those nicks alone, figuring that thousands of needle holes in that 4 foot strip was a zero sum game compared to the small nicks. That area will not be as water resistant but we have a metal roof over the covered boats to keep copious amounts of rain away. 

Here is what happened to PHOENIX under the cover. Luckily her bow handle, stern line and cover straps kept her from disappearing.

PHOENIX got repaired, now it's time for her cover to get repaired.

One strap was pulled loose by the storm surge, and I did a decent reinforced repair that I was pretty happy with, capturing the webbing in the seam. then realized that I forgot to put the nylon buckle back onto the webbing before I sewed it. Rather than undo the repair and have a lot of needle holes, I cut the webbing open, put on the buckle and straight stitched back over the webbing. 

4 or 5 more small patches.