Questions About Deck Gear
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Our Hard Dodger, Third Time
is the Charm
Diamonds Are
a Woman's Best Friend!
Our Hard Dodger, Third Time is the Charm (06/2008)
Question [edited for brevity]: I notice from pictures that you have a hard top dodger and bimini on Morgan’s Cloud. Who designed and built those? Was it expensive? Any pit falls to avoid? Also, I am thinking of trying to be environmentally friendly and loading mine with solar panels, what do you think?
Answer: What you see is our third crack at creating the "ideal" dodger and bimini top, at least for us. I can’t say that “design” is the word that I would use, more like "evolution".
When we bought Morgan’s Cloud she came with a fabric dodger set on heavy duty (1-1/4”) stainless steel bows. When that came to the end of its life we decided to stay with the basic shape and design, since it had worked well, but make the dodger top hard. We also decided to add a bimini top to try to reduce the crop of growing things that dermatologists delight in burning off my (John) skin.
In designing the bimini our first concern was that we not compromise access to winches or other sail handling equipment and to preserve good visibility. To us, turning a boat’s cockpit into a completely enclosed sunroom with curtains all the way around is a bad idea. And unnecessary: even in the Arctic with temperatures hovering around freezing we have not had a problem staying warm as long as we are protected from the wind and dressed properly.
We also decided to end the bimini forward of the wheel since we rarely steer and when we do we like to be able to look up at the mainsail. We do have a cloth addition that attaches to the aft end of the bimini and goes to the boom gallows to provide shade when the sun is aft.
Since the existing dodger bows were so substantial, we used them for the basic structure, although with a modification: The curve of the old fabric dodger had required us to keep our heads bent slightly forward when sitting under it. It is truly amazing how uncomfortable this can be on a long watch. To solve this problem we had a short piece of tube welded into the middle of each bow to move the curve outboard by 2 inches. This has had a miraculous effect on our comfort.
Before making this change we made sure that we would still be able to see the oncoming waves and the headsails, while sitting in a comfortable steering position and looking along the side of the dodger.
Ideally, we would have liked to make the whole dodger rigid including the windows. However this would have necessitated going to glass or plastic windows without curves, which would have compromised the boat’s looks to a level we could not tolerate. We did enquire about a custom curved laminated glass windshield; however, when the $10,000 figure was mentioned by the manufacturer, that was the end of that discussion.
We have no window material between the dodger and the bimini since if we can’t see properly through the dodger glass due to spray or condensation we want an unimpeded view when we stand to look over the dodger.
For our first hard dodger and bimini top we went to a mass producer of fiberglass tops for both. This was not a success. The fiberglass laminate was too thin, resulting in alarming flexing underfoot. Since being able to stand on the dodger to furl the mainsail or tie in reef points was a lot of the reason for going with a hard top in the first place, this was not acceptable, although it did last 4 years before developing cracks.
The other problem was that the extrusions provided to attach the fabric sides and front were really chintzy and poorly designed so it was impossible to keep the joint between the hard top and fabric sides waterproof. Aside from the discomfort of having constant drips, we navigate on deck under the dodger so leaks resulted in soggy charts and publications—very irritating.
For our third iteration we stayed with the same design but had a custom glass shop build the hard dodger top using a balsa core sandwiched with fiberglass. This resulted in a very stiff and relatively light structure, albeit at vast expense. After the custom shop finished their part, we covered it with Treadmaster, painted it with Allgrip and added good quality plastic extrusions, glued with Plexus adhesive, tucked well under the edge to prevent leaks.
At the same time we laminated a piece of ¼” plywood to the underside of the bimini, to stiffen and strengthen it, as well as adding Treadmaster to the top.
Finally, we had the new dodger front and sides fabricated in one piece with no zippers. We think that zippered windows in dodgers are a mistake since they result in blind spots and they will inevitably leak. Of course, those in hot climates may disagree, but we have never found the heat under the dodger excessive, even in the Caribbean. For fabric we went with Stamoid rather than the Sunbrella that we had used on previous versions.
These have proved to be good changes and combined with the well recessed tracks have made the dodger completely waterproof, even when punching to windward with the spray flying.
We have considered solar panels but are loath to add them since the clutter would make the bimini much less functional to stand on when sail handling.
The devil is in the details. Note how the hard top overlaps the fabric top edge, which slides into a plastic extrusion on the front. To attach the sides, there is a light fiberglass batten in a pocket that is through bolted to a rabbited-out lip, to clear the bows, on the underside of the hard top.
Comment: Very experienced live aboard voyagers Lane and Kay Finley sent along a detailed description of their hard dodger, complete with photographs. The advantage of theirs over ours is that it is all hard with glass windows; much stronger and pretty much maintenance free. On the other hand, I like the larger expanse of window, fewer blind spots and curved shape of ours. Just goes to show that everything on a boat is a compromise.
Many thanks to the Finleys for sharing the information below:
In the end, we designed and built our own hard top, using foam-cored fiberglass construction to achieve strength and lightness. The finished project is strong, safe to stand on, gives excellent visibility through GLASS, doesn’t ruin the lines of the boat and provides amazing protection from the weather.
Our navigation electronics now live under the hard top where they are protected from the elements and much more user friendly. We have also noticed that we get less ‘salt air’ inside the cabin.
Before undertaking this project, we took pictures of dozens of hard tops on boats that we saw sailing in New Zealand waters. The New Zealanders are well aware of the benefits of hard tops and you can see all sorts of creative designs in every port.
Since we consider our Annapolis 44 to have fairly elegant lines we were very cautious to adhere to a complementary design. After many drafts, we finally drew the final design to scale and then lofted the plans on our garage floor. We built the mould out of MDF plywood with inserts for the windows so that the 10mm safety glass would end up being set-in against a solid fiberglass lip and be flush with the exterior surface of the hard top.
This was a ‘female’ mould, so the interior surface was sanded smooth and then waxed to prevent the fiberglass resins from sticking to the mould. We laid up the required layers of fiberglass cloth and resin in the mould, and then placed the foam core (30mm medium density) over the fiberglass layers. At this point we laid up more fiberglass to the design specifications and ‘sandwiched’ the foam in place.
High Modulus, a composite engineering company in Auckland, made some recommendations for the engineering specifications.
The finished product, which also includes a dome light and reading lights in the ceiling, was fibreglassed in place and we re-painted the deck to finish it off. It has proven to be an excellent addition to the boat and cost approximately US$3000 in materials to build. Of course that does not count our labour. However, it was an interesting winter project and one that we are very proud of.
Check out Lane and Kay’s web
site and their new video on cruising New Zealand.
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Diamonds Are a Woman's Best Friend! (06/2008)
Question [edited for brevity]: Three friends and I are outfitting my Skye 51' for a five-year circumnavigation and we are replacing the old teak decks…I have heard many more pros than cons to Treadmaster and I would like to know your honest opinion on installation, upkeep, durability and general contentment with the product. Any input that you care to supply would be greatly appreciated.
Answer: Morgan’s Cloud had teak decks when we bought her in 1991; however, when they started leaking, we replaced the teak with an aggressive nonskid paint. We were happy with the nonskid until we spent two winters living aboard the boat in arctic Norway, when we found that the snow would compact under our weight and turn into mini ice rinks under each foot. So four years ago, as part of a major refit on the boat and in the interests of not having one of us inadvertently skate right off the deck some snowy day, we removed the nonskid paint and installed Treadmaster diamond traction sheets.
We highly recommend Treadmaster: Your shoes grip it like blazes even in the snow, it dampens the crash below when hard things hit the aluminum deck, it’s durable, and it’s easy to clean using a long-handled brush and boat soap. In fact, we like Treadmaster so much we have used smooth traction sheets on the cockpit seats to hold the cushions in place and on the floor of the shower and head.
However, we need to add some caveats:
- Installing Treadmaster is a huge
amount of work. It took us 3 person months of intense labour. A rough
outline of the proceedings are as follows:
- sanding the deck
- determining the centre line and cross lines on the boat (not an easy task on a multiply curved surface)
- designing a layout
- templating the whole deck (absolutely necessary, along with making sure all fittings can run freely and be removed if necessary with the Treadmaster in place)
- cutting out the Treadmaster sheets
- painting the seams between the sheets
- gluing the sheets down, etc. (more on installation)
- It’s not a cheap solution. The sheets are 4’ by 3’ and retail for about $100.00 each. We used somewhat over 20 sheets for our boat. (Because of the size of our order, we were able to negotiate a discount with Defender Industries, the US supplier.)
- It definitely gives the boat an industrial look but, in our opinion, beauty is as beauty does.
- Sitting on it will give you a bad case of waffle butt.
In summary, unless you can pay someone else to do the work or you have a lot of extra time and energy, we only recommend installing Treadmaster if you are going to be living on and/or sailing the boat in snow. Otherwise, non-skid paint, if applied properly with sufficient grit, will do the trick for significantly less time and money.
But, then again, after using it for four years now,
we wouldn’t give it up!
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