I built something like what you describe. It's held up above the boom by the main halyard, tied aft to the backstay, and uses two whisker poles as the spreaders. It's great at anchor, or motoring on a hot, calm day. I built it mostly for protection from the sun, but it should turn water too. It's more open than Rich's design. A regular Singer sewing machine has a tough time punching through 7 layers of Sunbrella and two layers of nylon webbing at the same time (Seams and joints on the corners). Broke at least two needles in the process! I could send a sketch of the thing, but pictures would have to wait until warm weather. Howard M17, #278 On 12/19/02 11:52 AM, "ron and cathryn goodspeed" <rcgoodspeed@mac.com> wrote:
Greetings ,
I have been thinking about a boom tent design for "hula pie", [M17 w/o lifelines] that would use the main halyard to pull up on a tab at the peak of the tent giving greater headroom and using a couple of fiberglass battens or 1/2 inch PVC pipe across the boat and tied down to the rails to give it some arch for rain to run off. I would try out this idea first with a tarp or some Tyvek first. What do you think? Maybe connect a sail slide to the end of a batten that ran longitudinally and connected with a T or passed under the cross battens. What would be really slick to use are those bungee/ aluminum tent supports that pull apart and fold up to about 15 inches long.
Thanks to all for the exchange of info, photos and ideas,
Ron and Cathryn Goodspeed M17 #025 "hula pie"
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