Making our new Feruke (Awning)

At the end of our vacation in July 2008, we spent Thursday and Friday at Grand River Yacht Club making a new feruke (the white awning) for "Changes".  Our old blue one like the cover that goes over the forward hatch, was getting pretty well worn,  so we decided to use the old #1 genoa sail instead of buying sunbrella fabric.  I sat on the floor using my Viking Sewing machine that has low gear. Phil assisted by helping to move the fabric along as I sewed.  It was definitely a job for two and Phil got really good moving the fabric in time with how fast I sewed.    

The top 2 pictures show us laying out the old one feruke on top of the new one so we could trace it onto the sail fabric.  We improved the old feruke by cutting it big enough to have 12+" of fabric to hang down on the port, aft, and starboard sides and 4" that hung down on the forward edge to protect better from when the sun goes down.  We also have plans to take the extra sail material and make detachable panels that can hang down attaching using the same hardward we used for the tan mainsail cover.   I also wanted some fabric handing on the forward part of the awning, so that we could hang some more fabric there in case the sun was coming down directly over the bow.   An additional improvement from the old feruke was using a zipper to attach the 2 big separate pieces aft of the end of the boom that went around the topping lift and using extra fabric to provide reinforcement about same topping lift.  Now that we have used it a few times, we are really glad to put in the zipper instead of using velcro.  We like having the white fabric - get a lot more light in the salon.  It is water proof, but we found one morning, that the underside can have heavy condensation with high humidity.  We bought some chamois plus at the Cleveland Boat Show, which we think will be better for absorbing the moisture than towels. You can see a couple views of the finished product in the last 2 pictures.