Britt: The blue boom tent is a water-proof tent fly from REI that has those small diameter bungee-linked tent poles inserted into sleeves at each side and one thru the middle. It is excellent for rain but very poor as a shade--the sun's heat seems to come right thru it. It can be mounted as shown in the photo, (which is at www.msogphotosite.com/MSOG/b15vanil/b15vanil8.jpg) or it can be turned 90 degrees so that the poles run fore & aft on the boat, which is easier and gives night privacy because it covers the cabin windows. The original tent fly is 80 x 108 inches, and the poles run parallel to the short side. The material is completely water proof and only requires shaking the water off before stowing for the day. I owe Larry Yake for the idea and the design. I'm going to make a similar one for my M17 but use white Tyvek™ as the material, the kind of Tyvek that is use for car covers, not the house wrap version. Tyvek is very reflective and things stay cool under it. I got this Tyvek from Material Concepts at the following web site: http://www.materialconcepts.com/pages/uv-soft-tyvek.asp The specific item was a 60" x 10-yard roll of Tyvek 1460, which cost about $70 but is the smallest amount that they sell, apparently. I will sew sleeves along the sides that run fore & aft and insert small diameter plastic pipe in them, rather than tent poles. Then the boom tent can just be draped over the boom and the pipes will hold the sides down, with the addition of tie-downs at each corner, similar to the blue tent you saw in the photo. On Mar 11, 2006, at 6:51 AM, btp2097@aol.com wrote:
Dear Mr. Hyde, I live in South Carolina, own M-15 hull #346 and have followed the Montgomery owner's web site for years. It disturbed me at first to learn you were selling "Vanilla" but was relieved you were up- grading to the M-17. The reason for this e-mail is to ask about blue sun/rain top curved around the boom of Vanilla in a photo with you standing by on the dock. South Carolina has very hot and sunny weather, especially on the water and protection is a must for any boater. I want to add a top to my boat but am torn between a fixed bimini top and a portable shade much like the aforementioned. I understand from your photos you have both. First, I would like to know where you got the portable shade. And second, which do you like better or recommend. Perhaps pros and cons of each. I know you are probably very busy out fitting "Hydaway 2" to the level of "Vanilla", However if you could spare a little advice to a novice, I'd love to hear from you. Thank you, Britt Poston