New to Mainship - and a boat cover question

[sbcfranklin]

Hello, my husband and I just purchased a 2000 Mainship 34 Pilot. It's our first "stay in the water", i.e. not trailerable boat. We are learning a lot about saltwater maintenance. We've been working on it in dry dock for about a month. We are excited to put it back in the water and head north to Birch Bay!

We hope to do a little winter cruising in the San Juan Islands. But, since our moorage is uncovered, we were wondering if anyone has recommendations for where to find a reasonable boat cover?

We've already appreciated the knowledge we've found on this forum.

Thanks, Bev & Steve

 

[Bacchus]

Welcome aboard TF and congrats on your "new" Mainship. We have been very happy with our 34 HT.
I have some worthwhile info & links on my Bacchus website and the MS sticky in the Marlow- Mainship forum also has info many have found helpful.
Sorry I can't help with any cover sources as we are on the opposite side of the US.

 

[sbcfranklin]

Love your HT. We are considering the teak deck add down the road. It looks great.

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard. Congrats on your new boat. I make all my canvas. Paid for the commercial machine 10 times over so far.

 

[Bacchus]

Love your HT. We are considering the teak deck add down the road. It looks great.

Thanks Steve

Dave brings up a great point. DIY Canvas work is not rocket science and many boaters would be surprised at what they can do with a little practice. A cover is a very doable (2nd or 3rd) project (after a couple "practice" smaller covers, bags, etc).

 

[Comodave]

Particularly if you are making a storage cover, it can be a great place to start and learn how to make canvas projects. Because it doesn’t have to be perfect just cover the boat when you aren’t there. It will be large but that shouldn’t stop you or intimidate you. Just make it in sections and then sew the sections together or use zippers to join them. Zippers make it easier to handle smaller sections. We used to have a complete cover down to the waterline almost for a 29’ Chaparral. It was a huge piece of canvas. At our age now we probably couldn’t handle it so I would do smaller pieces and zip them together. We have a Sailrite 111 which is no longer made but we have the upgraded motor and it will single stitch through 8 layers of Sunbrella. I calculate that we have literally saved over 10 times what the machine and everything cost us.

 

[Lollygag1]

Congrats on the new boat. Our 34 pilot came with a custom canvas cover that snaps in place. Works great. It was made by a firm in MD called Tidewater Canvas.


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[Mod edit - Photo Flipped]

 

[Lollygag1]

No you do not store it upside down,

 

[Comodave]

No you do not store it upside down,

The upside down photos is a PITA. I have tried to get some of mine fixed but have never had success.

 

[koliver]

I learned this year that if you are using an iphone to take your pictures, keep the lens at the top of the frame and the pictures will come out OK. Have the lens at the bottom, they won't. This applies to both Portrait and Landscape orientation.

 

[Comodave]

I learned this year that if you are using an iphone to take your pictures, keep the lens at the top of the frame and the pictures will come out OK. Have the lens at the bottom, they won't. This applies to both Portrait and Landscape orientation.

I have tried it both ways and sometimes it works fine, other times it doesn’t. They show right side up on my ipad but then I upload them and they are upside down. I edit them on the ipad until they are upside down and then upload them and they are still upside down on the forum... hmmm

 

[rgano]

Welcome aboard. Is this a hardtop? If so, maybe you could consider making covers for the fore and aft sections of the boat attached to the fore and aft ends of the top. This is my favorite "cover" and believe you me after a year and a half with the boat sitting in the water because of Hurricane Michael, I am happy as a clam at high tide to have it back. Down here, in order to have one of these, you have to get permission to cover state underwater lands.

Any cover you can provide will greatly improve the boat's lifespan.

I had this helm console cover made to give additional protection to stuff which really suffers in the sun.

 

[Bacchus]

The upside down photos is a PITA. I have tried to get some of mine fixed but have never had success.

Note: I have saved the photo - then open a photo editor and rotate the photo (sometimes it takes two 90* rotates if upside down) then save as a new name and upload the new photo file & delete the old one using manage attachments.

If anyone has problems or your edit time has expired just contact one of the Mods (PM or Report the subject post) requesting help.

 

[boomerang]

I have tried it both ways and sometimes it works fine, other times it doesn’t. They show right side up on my ipad but then I upload them and they are upside down. I edit them on the ipad until they are upside down and then upload them and they are still upside down on the forum... hmmm

I found, at least with pictures from my iphone and transfered to a windows computer, that if I edit the picture with my windows program, even the slightest edit (I normally crop the picture anyway), it shows up in the correct orientation every time.

 

[Comodave]

Note: I have saved the photo - then open a photo editor and rotate the photo (sometimes it takes two 90* rotates if upside down) then save as a new name and upload the new photo file & delete the old one using manage attachments.

If anyone has problems or your edit time has expired just contact one of the Mods (PM or Report the subject post) requesting help.

Thanks, have not tried that yet.

 

[Comodave]

I found, at least with pictures from my iphone and transfered to a windows computer, that if I edit the picture with my windows program, even the slightest edit (I normally crop the picture anyway), it shows up in the correct orientation every time.

Thanks I have not done that yet, I’ll try it next time I have trouble.

 

[sbcfranklin]

Thanks, great ideas and much appreciated

 

[Bacchus]

Welcome aboard. Is this a hardtop? If so, maybe you could consider making covers for the fore and aft sections of the boat attached to the fore and aft ends of the top. This is my favorite "cover" and believe you me after a year and a half with the boat sitting in the water because of Hurricane Michael, I am happy as a clam at high tide to have it back. Down here, in order to have one of these, you have to get permission to cover state underwater lands.

Any cover you can provide will greatly improve the boat's lifespan.

I had this helm console cover made to give additional protection to stuff which really suffers in the sun.

Rich
I do like your "cover"... best I've seen
I'm wondering - have no hurricane experience and not interested in experiencing it but...
Does the lift + overhead structure provide any opportunity to raise the lift & boat and either block strategic points to the overhead structure or strap the boat down and prevent drifting away in the storm surge?