Shades, Cushions & Flooring

Sep 7

In June and July, some final touches were completed on our living space refit; during which, we made a passage of ~750 nautical miles from the west coast of Florida to southeast Georgia to get more protection for hurricane season.

Artful Canvas Design again worked on our canvas, first patterning and coming up with a design with us for the cockpit shades, cushions and the new settee. The trick is that the patterns have to be exact and a tight fit to serve as a template for sewing at the shop.

Cockpit Shades ~

Patterning was arduous in the Florida heat, but the end result was a perfect fit.

As for design, we had a few requests that Geoff was able to accommodate. For the side shades, we wanted the ability to set the shades out to the lifelines. We like this for full 270˚ shade, with visibility underneath to your surroundings when seated in the cockpit. It also helps to funnel a nice breeze into the cockpit area.

However, unlike the Manta, the Dolphin has a raised walkway on the side decks that is not easy to access when the shades are fully deployed on the lifelines. So, we designed the side shades with the option to snap onto the hull as well, so that you can access the side decks and bow while keeping shade and privacy.

Another tricky point was the aft bench seat. The previous shade went around the back of the bench and it hit the back of your head when seated. Taking advantage our new dinghy davits, we wanted to extend the rear shade outboard, giving more headspace for the bench seat.

The dual main sheets are split over this seat so the shade needed to work around these obstacles. Geoff came up with a nice design to incorporate zippered splits in the shade to capture the sheets when the boom is centered at anchor. The only other position we might keep the boom at anchor would be all the way to port or starboard to keep the boom shade off of the solar panels, where the sheets would clear the shade altogether in those positions.

Aft shade capturing dual main sheets; side shades to lifelines

We ended up picking charcoal grey marine Sunbrella over our previous preference on the Manta with cadet gray shades. The cadet gray color was a good mix of shade and heat control, although it was was quite bright and reflective in the cockpit. We went with the darker gray for aesthetics and it does give more shade/less glare in the cockpit; however, it remains to be seen if more heat absorption is a downside in the tropics.

All shades can roll up out of the way. At anchor, it seemed like the sun would always find the one corner area with no shade and blind us…

Now, we’re happy to have shades in our “corners” where the walk-through is, where you can keep them rolled up when going in and out and, put them down for happy hour.

Cockpit cushions ~

We picked a new shade of blue for the cockpit and really like the color ~ Sapphire Blue marine Sunbrella. The cockpit seats were patterned and sewn in 3” closed-cell foam. Even though firm, we are used to them and prefer closed-cell for these seats to be weather/water proof and quick-drying.

For the two bench seats, one aft and one at the helm, we used 4” Dri Fast foam and 3” seat backs. These seats are permanent, as opposed to the cockpit seats that can be un-snapped, rinsed and taken out on the trampolines to dry. Both bench seats are screwed into a stainless frame and the foam is set on a plastic board with drain holes and Textilene on the bottom for drainage. Our cockpit is quite weather-proof now with our full enclosure, but they will get rained on or washed on occasion.

We are quite happy with the quality and fit of our cockpit cushions. Artful Canvas Design took the initiative to redo and replace anything that was less than perfect, which was really impressive. The details in the stitching really caught our attention and this high standard translated into the interior cushions as well.

Settee cushions ~

For our reconfigured settee it was a bit of a challenge to envision how to design the cushions. We know what we like when we see it, but aren’t great at interior design from scratch. So, we went to the internet to research settees that appealed to us.

The length of the settee also posed a challenge as to how to divide up the space. Finally, we came across a design on the internet that had corner cushions and realized that would give us the nice proportion of cushions sizes and placement that we were seeking. Once we had these sections envisioned, and the seat backs to follow, we just had to pick foam and fabric.

A big consideration for seating areas is standard human proportion factors. Mondo Marine built-in a comfortable 13˚ angle for the seat backs, so the cushions didn’t need to be angled to do that work. However, the seat height to the floor was already ~16” (following original Dolphin seats), so we couldn’t add too much height in seat cushions. Testing the foam out before sewing was a good call.

We ended up using 3” medium foam for seats and seat backs. Saloon seats also incorporated another 0.5” knee bolster around the seat for comfort and looks. Again, the double-stitched seams added a very classic look.

The fabric we chose was Ultraleather Original, Rain Dance. We love this color smoky blue! Having had real leather and then Ultrafabrics Brisa fabrics in our saloons the past, we chose Ultraleather Original due to its higher rating for abrasion (rub/double rub tests).

All seats are held in place with heavy-duty velcro strips. The saloon ottoman also got a new cushion and we’re very pleased with the new look, especially with the new flooring!

Saloon flooring ~

The raised floor in the saloon was removed and allowed us to re-glass the new settee in the front and back of the molded seats. However, we soon found it almost impossible to match the previous teak and holly laminate in dimensions (plank width) and color (ours is a darker teak shade than most)! Like many things on our Brazilian-built boat, sourcing original parts is often a futile task.

After endless internet searches and many samples, we found some horrible matches and a few close contenders from overseas. Even so, the match wasn’t really perfect and we already have many competing hues of wood on the boat.

Finally, we realized that going in a completely different direction than wood and offsetting the raised saloon floor would be our best option. Many [ugly] samples later, we headed to Lowes and Home Depot!

Sorting through all of the high contrast-y wood patterns, we finally encountered a black, lightly textured floor called Twighlight.

It is planked and backed with rubber, so a bit more weight than we wanted, but we knew this was the one.

Dealing with seemingly endless business delays (some 2020-related and some not), we were able to pick up the flooring from Lowes in Florida after we’d sailed back to Georgia. At least we had to go there anyway to pick up our car. Mark had already patterned the planks into our funny-shaped, raised saloon and was ready for a quick install.

He did a great job designing a pleasing pattern, then measuring, cutting and shaping all of the planks. The overall result was really beyond our expectations!