Joe
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djplatt/5959636538/in/photostream
here is a picture of a sunshade that came with my boat. It works great and if I was going to replace it I would use the same colour Sunbrella as the sail cover. Couple of things to note about it are:
1. It actually clips on to the backstay. This solves to problem of it deforming over the forward end of the sail cover. I doesn't actually rest on the boom.
2. There are battens running from the ridge down to the edges of the tarp. This keeps the tarp about the right shape and stops a lot of flapping in the breeze.
3. There are shockcords at the attachment points that clip to the mast, stays and lifelines.
Blue Sumbrella is really the way to go for boom tarps. That one looks great too. The pics are great and that area is breath taking and so beautiful. That little girl is so pretty too.
I'd like to go with Sumbrella but my cabin cushions covers need to be replaced and I think that they should come first before investing in pricey boom tarp.
Right now the most important project I need to tackle involves figuring out a way to get back the 2" that I cut off the bottom of my mast last summer.
My mast was rotted near the bottom where the Stainless Steel mast plug was screwed into place for my Kenyon hinged Tabernacle. The bottom of my mast was all corroded because of the two different metals in contact with one another. My son cut 2" off the bottom of my mast and I wound up putting the same stainless steel plug back on the mast and using two pieces of 1" Trex to make up the difference that was cut off. The mast plug plate is 1/4" thick. It works, but it's too heavy and it really doesn't solve the problem of avoiding more mast corrosion in the future.
So my plan now is to use a 1" thick piece of Trex that I intend to cut to fit snug into the bottom of my mast and mount it on a 1/4" Aluminum plate. The 1/4" plate only has to overlap the mast about an 1/8". I plan on using five wood screws through the bottom side of the mast to hold the Trex in place. Then I'm going to need to figure out what to use to make up the 2" needed between the Aluminum plate, and the top Tabernacle hinge which shouldn't be a problem.
I could use two 1" pieces of Trex but I'd like to get away from that by using a piece of cast aluminum or something light and strong.
Capt'n Pauley came up with an idea of using HDPE for a mast step that could alleviate the electrolysis problem, so my question is why can't I use Trex for a mast plug between my stainless steel hinge tabernacle?
http://captnpauley.typepad.com/ If I use stainless steel wood screws through the side of my mast to hold the Trex plug in place, I'll surely insulate the screws from the Aluminum.
Do any of you DYI sailors have some thoughts on this? What I have right now works but I don't like it. The tabernacle looks kind of hacky doesn't it? I had a 1" piece of Teak under the tabernacle for many years and I recently replaced it with a piece of Trex and it will remain permenant. Raising the mast tabernacle by only 1" turned out to be the best thing I ever did to my boat. It allowed more clearance off the top of my cabin to enable my mast to lay almost horrizontal while pinned to the tabernacle and ready to be raised. This works out great if you use a Gin Pole for raising/lowering the mast.
Please feel free to chime in on this boat project because I really need help on this one.
Joe