boat tents

I'm back on that again. Osbert who owns a walkabout boat started thinking on his tent and how he wanted to alter it. That got me thinking not least because of a picture he posted of a pathfinder 'Moody blue' which had an interesting boat tent.

 

these are images of  'Moody Blue'

I think they belong to H Peerdeman who I haven't been able to contact yet. If you are Mr P, please contact me so I can formally ask permission to show these here; or, of course, remove them at your request. I quite like this design - very roomy inside - but will it 'catch the wind' too much?

As I see it I have two options

• buy an off the shelf cheap dome or tunnel tent and get one as close as I can to the dimensions of Arwen.
• construct my own and tailor make it to what I want

.........................and exactly what I want is still troubling me.........slightly

In no particular order are requirements such as

• easy of assembly and packing away
• storage in minimal space in boat
• minimal weight
• maximum protection from elements
• low enough so it doesn't act like a giant sail and cause swinging at anchor
• light colour - so light can come through
• minimal condensation on inside
• entrances - side; bow and stern
• windows somewhere
• option to roll up doors but have bug netting - allow breeze through if need be
• lowish height but high enough for sitting upright comfortably on side thwarts
• strong and rigid enough to withstand some wind force!
• goes over the side decks so I can put things on them without them dropping in to the briny..............so tight fitting around gunwale
• elasticated hems - attached to hooks below rubbing strakes on outside?

Some people have suggested buying a couple of real cheap tents and cutting them up and re-stitching them on home sewing machine to what I want - I could salvage tent zips, window panels etc; use existing tent pole tunnels etc. I guess it could be possible. Canvas seems very expensive.

again apologies but I don't know where these came from via the internet. I think the boat is a roamer? I suspect this is a DCA colleague but I am not sure. It is a very well made tent and I really quite like the design as long as there is comfortable sitting up room inside?

if you are the owner of these pictures, please do contact me and let me know - I will, of course either acknowledge your copyright immediately, or of course remove them. Thanks

Anyway this weekend what I am going to do is to try and make a mock up. I saw pictures somewhere where someone had laid out a scale plan of the boat on a piece of plywood through which they had drilled evenly spaced small holes along the outside end of the boat. Through these they had bent electric cable ties - the thin plastic ones. These formed hoops from one side to the other. Over this they had cut out thin plastic polythene shapes and assembled them over the hoops to make a sort of tunnel tent with tapered ends. In this way they were able to work out what kind of cutting patterns they needed; how many tent 'panels' there would be; what shape they might be etc.

It was a clever idea.  Which then made me think.........an alternative to the dome/tunnel is a box design and I could use the very thin BBQ kebab skewers to represent aluminium poles and make a mock up like that too!!

Well that is Saturday taken care of and I'll post photographs and you can make up your minds on whether it helped me make a choice or not!! In the meantime previous musings on a tent for Arwen can be found at http://arwensmeanderings.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/thinking-of-summer-dinghy-campingill.html

Steve

PS Of course if I was a real genius I'd design something which could act BOTH as boat cover and a tent........but that is probably stretching my little deteriorating grey cells a wee too much........or is it????