CS 20 BOOM TENT CONSTRUCTION...

[Rob Blackburn]

I have seen the pictures of the CS boats with fibreglass hoops to support the cockpit tent and have been pondering how to do this best.

Do you drill holes in your lovely boat ? Do you glue horrible blocks on the outside of the coaming to fit the ends into? Do you screw some sort of clip onto the outside of your coaming?

I am at a loss really as to which way to go. The other thing I thought of was to sew up a sort of tent that would fit inside the boat and you would put your air bed into that. Like a hiking tent erected on the seats. Have some infills between centreboard and seat and then drop the structure onto this platform. You would then have the problem of rain going down outside the tent and onto the seat. But a waterproof dish style of construction would theoretically keep you in the tent thing dry.

Probably the easiest would be to drill holes in the boat but I want to resist that. Even to put a boom tent over a sprit joined between the two masts would need holes somewhere.

Give me your suggestions

[Guest]

Bump. maybe Graham will give us some insight here.

[Brent]

Rob, I have been pondering the same. Originally I planned to set my hiking tent on top of the seats with inserts between the seats and CB trunk. But finding my tent longer than the space, I am looking for alternatives.

I am thinking of using building a tent supported by arched PVC pipe running in tubes sewn into the tent fabric. I have a source for Sunbrella type fabric which is expensive, but I would not need much of it. I was thinking of fastening the fabric to snap points on the underside of the gunwale, thereby causing any rain or spray to fall overboard rather than into the boat.

Some comments from someone who has actually done this would be great.

[Roger Peterson]

Look on the B & B site at the BRS 15. There is a boat called "LOON" that shows a hooped tent like you have described. I think it was built by Tom Lathrop. There is also a short story about camp cruising Loon in Mexico. You can make out some of the construction details of the tent from the pictures.

I plan to try the same tent for my CS-17 this spring. I think I will sew up a prototype from old sheets before I start cutting the expensive Sunbrella. :n00b:

Roger

[Guest]

Attachment postions and any hardware, Tom???

[Designer]

Here is the boom tent that I built for my Bay River Skiff. Unfortunately I don't have any good picks, the wind hit as this shot was taken and puffed it up.

It uses the sprit as a ridge pole or boom. The forward end had a 1/2" ply yoke which fitted around the mast and into the fork of the sprit and was tied. The aft end had a lightweight scissor crutch to support the sprit. The cover was boom awning with 3 battens, one forward, one aft and one in the center. The sides were like roll down blinds made of spinnaker cloth with zippers to connect them.

What I liked about this design is that after a day in the sun, just the top could be set up and we could still enjoy the view. If the sun was low in the sky we could drop the sunny corner or if we wanted to fire up the stove we could drop the front to shield the flame from the wind and still enjoy the view.

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[Roger Peterson]

This shot is from the inside of Loon's tent looking out. You can see the PVC bow frame just inside the opening.

From the B & B Site...

I love the "Million dollar view"

Roger

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[Tom Holder]

Instead of the PVC pipe you could probably pick up a couple of kids tents cheap with collapsing (on purpose) fiberglas poles. These might make for easier storage on board. I used 4 to make a roof for a wooden fort for the kids - drill some small holes and you're in.

[Barry Pyeatt]

Here is an article from The Small Boat Journal that should give you some good ideas.

http://councill.home.mindspring.com/sbjournal/tent/tent1.html

[lsearle]

Hi Rob, best boom tent I have ever seen is in John Welsford's study plan for his 17ft. Walkabout design on

www.duckworksmagazine.com/store/plans/jw/walkabout

He uses oar rowlock fittings in the gunwhale or adjacent to hold fibreglass hoops to support a tent.

Lawrie Searle

Australia

[Rob Blackburn]

This is great guys, just printed off the stuff and are off to bed to read it. I did not think of the rowlock holes for one minute.

I shall give a more considered reply in the morning. It is late and we were up late last night.

Rob

[Karl Hibbert.]

The fibreglass sectional poles Tom is talking about are usually available

seperately in various weights and lengths from specialist camping and backpacking outllets -it should be cheaper to purchase them as spares than trash a whole tent (unless of course you can adapt the fabric part as well.)

[Tom Holder]

That's a good idea. I was lucky - I went to a Value Village used goods and outlet store and got kids tents for $4 CDN each. Bought a bunch to give away to family and used a couple around my house. Good quality poles though even at that price ($29.99 regular) - 2 per tent.