I'm considering upgrading my sail cover for the following reasons:
- Old cover is worn, needs patching or replacing
- Improve the ability to sail single handed
- Evict the otter that has decided my current cover with easy to jump into holes along the bottom is a great hammock to rest in (he's cute but messy)
I've found both Doyle and Mack Pack seem to make them for the Nonsuch, is there any others i should look at or drawbacks i should consider before making a purchase?
My sail is newer, full battened, made by North Sails.
Thanks,
Will Benjamin
Bainbridge Island
Hull# 181, 30C, "Z Fat Cat"
It's been an active subject of late. I will be glad to send pics or tell you what I think I know. There is a gentlemen named Butch Miller that has made our zipper top sail covers for the past few years and to my knowledge, everyone is happy, With his guidance, the Solomons Nonsuch Fleet (SNF) came up with our design that all seem to like. See attached pictures. It was a cold, rainy day when these were taken. I can probably do better if you wish.
His particulars:
Allison "Butch" Miller
anmiller03@aol.com
410 271 2540
110 Bentons Pleasure Dr.
Chester MD 21619
Cheers,
Butch
Butch Garren
Nonsuch 30 #196
Whiskers II
Solomons, MD
I can verify, Butch Miller is great to work with and he makes a beautiful sail cover.
Butch Garren,
Thanks for that lead. Can you explain the line that shows as nearest on the left that supports the cover in photo 09451? That line does not go up to the boom, but goes through a snap hook and them seems to go forward.
Tim in STL
White O’morn NS26U #216
Harbor Point Yacht Club
West Alton, MO
I’m hoping this picture answers your question. Right, wrong or indifferent it was hoping that the bridle method would help to equalize weight distribution as sail cover slopes up.
Thanks for the recommendation Butch, i'm having trouble with that email address though, could you check and re-post or send to me directly (will.benjamin@gmail.com)
ok it looks like the forum truncates the username part of the email address and adds three dots, does anyone know how that works? My email address is my first and last name with a period between (will.benjamin) followed by @gmail.com.
I use Google Chrome and it does truncate the email addresses as you describe. By clicking on the address, I get a dialogue box that ask me to click again, confirming I am not a robot. Then the address is fully visible.
This looks really attractive, but I’d like to understand how it’s normally used. How does this cover work when the sails are up?
Like a Mack Pack or Stack Pack that stays on permanently and lies flush with the sail? Like the homemade one that was posted earlier which rolls up and hangs underneath the sail? Or does it come off completely and get stowed below?
Those are good questions. Since I have only owned the boat for a year and a half, I do not have a lot of pictures while under sail but the ones I’ve included should answer most of your questions.
The cover stays on while the sail is up. Once you position the cover, to your liking, with the stretch cord or strap at the after wishbone end, and the lazy jacks all you need to do is to hoist sail, pull in choker and you should find that the cover appears neatly in place. You may have to play with this a little bit to get the desired look. I realize that there are those that are concerned about effect on speed or appearance. For me, outside of an occasional fun race, I just don’t care if there is some kind of insignificant impact on speed. Regarding appearance, what can I say? I can tell you this, at the end of a hot, stinky sailing day and I still need to put the boat to bed, the amount of time this rig saves is remarkable. When preparing to sail, just unzip the cover and attach halyard. That fast!
When there is a need to remove sail, simply deal with your lazy jacks and battens as you always did. Unzip the cover at the front of the mast. Just zip the top of the cover back up. Please note that on my rig, I used snap type carabiners to connect the lazy jacks to the “D” rings on the cover. All that needs to be done is to disconnect the after end of the sail from wishbone and do the same with after end of cover. Release sail tack from mast ring. These are things you would have done with conventional cover. Disconnect all the carabiners (less than a minute for my boat). Your sail is still nicely packaged in your cover and ready to be moved to where ever you want. Some just drag it to inside the boat for the Winter. Don’t forget to connect the corresponding ends of your carabiners to each other when cover is removed.
Hope this helps. Need more pics, I’ll see what I can find. BTW, the boat’s name is now Whiskers II.
That’s very nice. I like the way yours looks with sail up and down. I also would like to convert to one of these sail covers eventually but didn’t like the solutions at the mast end with the sail up.
Cant see from the photos but does the choker line run outside of your cover and is it rigged there permanently? What about the halyard?
Not sure what your concern is with the mast end. If it’s appearance, were all different and that’s understood. Some have used a shoe lace method to secure to mast. If it’s functionality that is a concern, I can only attest to the fact that it works great.
I never left the halyard connected to my sail when not in use. The halyard never touched the sail cover. This applied to both my NS 22 and now my NS 30. All lines that terminate to the mast ring in one form or fashion stay inside the cover. However when you unzip cover all of these lines are exposed and do not interfere with the cover.
View with the cover open. As a side note, I kept halyard stored at end of wishbone and used it to share weight with topping lift. On my NS 30, it’s too long of a hike to the end of the wishbone so I wrap it around the sail/sail cover mid ships and snug it up.
Looking at the sail cover on Whisker/Whisker II - what keeps the cover up at the forward end? Is it attached in some manner to the mast or is it just real stiff fabric (such as Shelter Guard from Sailrite)? How does the cover handle choker adjustments - the fore/aft movement. Finally, how does the choker blocks on the 30 manage - do they get caught at all on the edge of the sail cover next to the mast?
The sail cover maker uses 10 oz. sail cloth as the stiffener and all structural parts of the cover. The stiffener incorporated with the mast wrap around portion supports itself and has never shown any attempt at sagging. I do not have a good picture to provide you for either boat but at the bottom of the cover is a pie shape opening tapering aft about a foot (?). With the cover unzipped, incorporated with the fixed opening below, there is enough space for all lines to freely work, including the choker arrangement. With the boat put to beddo tighten up the choker to make things look neater. There is no wear because of this. The 10 oz sail stiffener appears to act as a lubricant allowing any within the cover movement without harm. Hopefully I will get to the boat tomorrow and I’ll take close up pictures and send to you. In the below picture, the blue line is the choker. You can barely see it but it goes to a block about a foot above the cover. Also, you can barely see the opening below the cover at mast. With the cover unzipped, the sides spring out a little further than the sides of the mast which provides a lot of room for the lines to do their thing freely. There has been no wear on the cover anywhere what-so-ever. Whiskers II cover is 1 year old while on Whiskers I had that for 4 or 5 years with no known wear.
Hi Butch
I still like the way this looks, appearance is great. But the 22 is rigged differently than the 26, the problem is function. A block between the chocker and chocker tackle (it isn’t bolted to the mast as in your photo) would hang up on the edge of this sail cover, and on the other side the halyard (not the sail part, the tail part exiting the mast about 8 feet off the deck) would saw through the cover eventually. To solve this problem some of the other design photos show this around mast part can be unzipped.
From the photo it looks like your cover at the mast has a few layers and is fairly stiff. If it was just one layer of sunbrella it wouldn’t hold its shape like this. Thanks for the photos.
Understood. Both on Whiskers and Whiskers II the wrap around can be unzipped. I just didn’t and don’t have a need to do that unless I am removing the rig. As an aside, Ed Bahniuk, NS 26 #192 had no issues with his cover. However the rigs vary and most certainly has to be considered for a good design.
The block on Ed’s boat was bolted to the mast though.
Have a great evening!
Butch
A good picture of Whiskers with block just above the cover. Also please note Velcro zipper cover at front of mast.
Hi ButchOk I see, the boats are rigged the same just that the lower block on my boat is shackled to the mast ring down lower not bolted to the mast. My plan has the around the mast section removable.
I think they didn’t want to drill any more holes in the lower section of the mast and the track is also held on with the stainless straps on the lower part.
I tend to agree with not drilling holes in the mast or anywhere else in the boat. Does the floating block slam against the mast at all? One of our original ideas was to have the same design but with the wrap around being removable. Decided to go with the zipper at mast front instead for whatever reason we chose at the time. You should be able to adjust your choker lines, may have to replace a line, to ensure that the block is high enough for your needs.
No matter what you come up with, Butch miller would work with you to do what you want.
