Tag: Captain Dan & Jilly

Maintenance, March 2020

Sparkle’s Dazzling New Chaps

Here we are in New Zealand Lockdown 2020 waiting for who knows what our future has in store for us.  Projects abound on Dazzler and the next project du Jour is a new set of Chaps on Sparkle.   Last week I sewed up five new fuel can covers and this week it’s a new set of dingy chaps.  Things are going swimmingly.  Because I’d made chaps before, I learned several things during that construction that I thought I’d do differently if I ever had to make chaps again.  I thought way back in 2009 that I’d never have to make another set of chaps again.  Well, here we are in New Zealand and in need of having a new set of chaps for Sparkle’s facelift. 

I first used some clear plastic painter’s drop cloth to make a pattern of her new tubes.  I then transferred the pattern to the new Sunbrella fabric that we had onboard from Mexico.  After the pattern was transposed to the fabric, I did the first cut of fabric.  I decided that I wanted all of the cutout openings around the handles and other equipment to be pre made before the cut out of the fabric was complete to save some time and frustration of turning a bunch of fabric two or three times through the yoke of the sewing machine.  So, I made uniform patterns for the handle cut outs from a coated fabric that has a high UV resistance.  I made two identical pieces for each opening, sewed them together and trimmed the inward edge with leather trim.  Much easier to get a good pattern and finished look with a smaller piece of fabric.  The purpose for the two identical pieces of this fabric would make it easy to sandwich the chaps fabric between them and then over stitch it to secure it in place with a more precise finish and placement of the opening trim.  And in the process make it easier to sew.  We will see what happens.  All things were working nicely so far. 

After all the openings were stitched onto the main panels, it was time to start stitching the panels together.  This is where it can get a little tricky.  I did make some alignment marks to help set it up for sewing.  I’m not sure how many trips I made back and forth from the dock to the companionway and down below where my Sailrite sewing machine was set up.  My social distancing exercise was almost done in place at Dazzler’s dock.  The old adage of measure a butt load of times and cut or sew once was in full usage.  Needless to say all went well with stitching the panels together.  

Next were the stern cones attachment to the panels.  I used Phifertex mesh fabric to allow any seawater that gets forced up under the chaps the ability to drain out with ease.  After the cones were stitched in place, I finished off the interior edge with a pre-made hem along the straight run and used leather binding to finish off the cut edges.  By the way all of those areas that had a cut edge had reinforcing fabric placed underneath and stitched in place.  This was done were sharp 90° corners existed.  This makes the corner stronger and more resistant to corner tears from stretching as the fabric gives and shrinks.  And yes, even Sunbrella fabric in my experience will have a bit of shrinkage.  So allow about an inch per side for the inevitable shrinkage factor.  

Next, I finished off the trim around the stern cones to get ready for the exterior hem to be added.  Everything was taking shape daily and all the other boaters on the dock would give their positive nods, looks and comments as they would walk by on their journey keeping two meters away from me while they headed off to do their grocery store trips or exercise tracks.  They could see the daily progress and of coarse they asked lots of questions and made comments like, “When you’re done there come on over to do ours next.”  LOL. Our neighbors on the sailing vessel Greyhound, may have decided to get new tubes made for their tender now before they make their own dingy chaps.  Marie did say she was jealous because she hadn’t purchased any fabric before the great lockdown of 2020.  

The next step was to make the exterior hem which was about 260 inches long.  I first joined several sections of six inch wide fabric together to make the needed length.  Then I started folding and stitching the long runs to accommodate the needed hem for the exterior of the chaps.  This hem will also house a 3/16” Dacron cord to act as a drawstring to cinch the chaps just below the rub rail of the dingy sides.  With the 250 thousand foot hem, LOL, and Dacron cord ready, I grabbed a sandwich, a beer, turned on some sewing music and started folding the cord into the hem and stitching it onto the exterior cut edge of Sparkle’s new sexy chaps.  A day and a half later, my sandwich was gone, I was on my third beer and Jilly was covered in what looked like a blue and yellow heap of fabric as she was sitting on the opposite side of the table from me.  I couldn’t immediately see her so I yelled out, “Marco?”  Her response, “Polo!”  There she is!  And yes, she did a great job supervising while recuperating from her torn muscle injury.

Drum roll please…  It was time to go out and test fit the chaps onto Sparkle’s new tubes.  Tada, She fits!  A little tug here, pull there, stretch the draw cord and tied it off to the transom cleats on the stern.  She is finished!  The only thing left to do was to attach a yellow racing stripe on each side for easier identification during full moon dingy racing and add the Snads and snap fasteners to the inside of the tubes to hold the inside fabric in place.  Snads are a product manufactured by YKK and have a very robust 3M adhesive backing that easily sticks to the inflatable tubes without drilling any holes.   

Cracked open a celebratory beer, took some hero photos and got ready for the next project.

Until the next project, keep two meters away from each other, enjoy your lockdown confinement and stay safe.

Cheers!

Captain Dan

P.S. As an afterthought I decided to add a couple of pockets for the ores to sit in. Turned out quite nice I think.

Fiji, Fundraising, March 2020

And Now For Some Good News

Well these are some crazy times we are living in to be sure.  Of course this isn’t going to stop us from continuing our mission to help the children of Fiji. As they say, “Adjust, adapt and overcome.” This is what we are doing so we thought we’d provide everyone with a little update.

First lets start with the good news. Thanks to all of our fabulous contributors we not only met but exceeded our goal of $3500 USD. Thank you Captain Lawnboy for jumping in after our last post and making up the difference with your very generous donation! For books $3500 may not sound like a lot of money but our dollar goes a long way here in New Zealand so that’s actually more like $6000 USD and that my friends will get a lot of great books!

Thanks for all of your help Dave!

Of course in addition to buying them we have our generous book donation partners who stepped up to help. Thanks to Dave at All Marine for coordinating with Irene of Zonta International and the Kokopu Elementary School we picked up close to 700 books a couple of weeks again. Also, Judy Allison of the Lions Club coordinated helped us to acquire another 400-500 books. The community support for this is unreal!

We picked up the first boxes of books from Dave a couple of weeks ago and our first order of business was to get some organization going. To that end we needed to pick up some smaller, more uniform boxes. It’s important for the cruisers who will haul and deliver them to have them in smaller, manageable size boxes that store easily on a boat.

Since Dazzler was still in the yard we took the books we picked up from Dave back to the boatyard and set up a sorting station there. For several hours Jilly went through the books checking for ones with torn or missing pages and organizing them to be boxed. Dan did the boxing and heavy lifting. We filled each box with a variety of books for kids of all ages. In the end we had 12 boxes of books ready to be handed over to the Cruiser Angels who will be the making deliveries.

Of course we don’t have the ability to get them to everyone just yet so we needed a place to store them. Our dear friend Allan Gray at Wynn Fraser Paints offered to store them in a storage area at their store. Thanks Allan!!!

Thanks Judy! Love the great journals and other books!

Just this week we picked up 7 more boxes of books from Judy Allison, the District Governor for the New Zealand Lions Club. While the books from the school were fun reading books, the books from the Lions Club included a couple hundred reading journals for teachers to use in addition to a couple hundred other reading books. Looks like we probably have somewhere around 1200-1400 donated books. This was completely unexpected but certainly a blessing.

So what are we doing with your donations? Well, Jilly spent days and days on the computer researching and reading about children’s books. We ordered a couple of hundred brand new books and some large, wall maps of the world. Maps are big for these kids as they like to see where they are in the world.

Since we have tons of great reading books including everything from Charlotte’s Web to Br’er Rabbit (one of Jilly’s favorites), we decided to spend the donated funds on good, educational books including Children’s World Atlases, books on animals and some really great ones that talk about people and cultures across the globe. There’s some science books and other fun learning material on it’s way to us as well AND we still have more money to spend on new books.

We figure by the time we are done we should have somewhere around 2000 books to deliver to the deserving children of Fiji and you are part of this great accomplishment. Thank you!

Of course as we’ve said, given the state of the world at this moment, we have to adjust, adapt and overcome. So what is the current status of delivering to the islands?

Well, honestly all of us cruisers are in a state of suspension right now due to the coronavirus. Borders are closed all over the globe and Fiji is no exception. Right now we are not even sure we will be permitted to sail to Fiji this year. It all depends on when the borders are reopened. For those of you who are not sailors, it’s not just of matter of them opening the border and us taking off. We have weather and seasons to think about.

Being in the southern hemisphere Spring starts at the end of September. With Spring and then Summer comes the potential for cyclones. Cruisers with any sense of sanity don’t sail north between November 1st and the end of April. So, if the borders do not open up for six months or more we may be required to stay in New Zealand until next cruising season. If this is the case then we will find a small storage unit and store the books for the year. We have every intention of delivering these books personally to the children. If the worse case scenario occurred, we could ship them but due to the weight of this number of books it could be a very costly proposition. As much as we’d like to get them over there this year it may have to wait. Obviously the health and safety of everyone involved is our top priority.  

So, at the moment, we are hovering about in a holding pattern. We will keep everyone updated as the days and weeks pass but don’t worry we will get the books to the children one way or another!

In the meantime, stay safe, be healthy and keep smiling!

Cheers,

Jilly & Dan