Winch Covers - a great rainy day project

I don't know about where you live, but we have had a lot of rain here in Seattle lately.  Jeff, living aboard s/v Pilgrim, gives us here a great rainy day project.  But more importantly, we have a confession that he committed the nearly unpardonable sailors' sin of actually following directions!

Rainy weather may have prevented work out in the boat yard today, but it gave me time to get some sewing done.

Starboard cockpit winch - naked and exposed to the sun.

We purchased Pilgrim with two Barient/Barlow 25 self-tailing winches in the cockpit.  The rope jaws on these winches are plastic and susceptible to UV damage.   I’ve learned that Lewmar purchased Barient and replacement parts are now very difficult to find.   Thus the need  protect the winches with sunbrella covers.

Fortunately Sailrite recently posted a how to video on making winch covers .  I followed the directions on the video nearly verbatim – unusual for myself.

Much of the canvas work on C’est la Vie was “toast” colored Sunbrella so we have many spare remnants around for small projects.  I figured the light brown color would work well alongside Pilgrims wood cockpit combing. The only other  necessary component was a couple short lengths of bungee cord.

All components of the covers ready for assembly.

Sewing the top piece to the vertical sides is a bit tricky, but as the video recommends going slow eases the process.

Tensioning the bungee on the first cover to be completed.

I could not wait for the rain to cease before running out to the boat for a test fit.

Test fitting portside cover 

Success!  Another project to tick off the Pilgrim to do list.