We have a Pearson 323 that we are planning to use for an extended cruise. It now has a folding Bimini. We need more electricity and I''m thinking of solar panels but there is no good place to put them. I saw a Golden Hind with a hard bimini that I didn''t like at the time. Thought the bimini was ugly. In retrospect a hard bimini seems to be the ideal place for solar panels and with a raised edge and plumbing could serve as a rain catcher for drinking or more likely bathing/cleaning water. Anyone with experience, thoughts or opinions??
That is a thought but the dodger would be in the shade from the boom. Also it would be more likely to be damaged. With the P-323 the boom doesn''t extend over the aft part of the cockpit. A hard dodger would have some benefits. We now have a soft dodger that I like.Thanks
Am in process of building a hard dodger for Cheoy Lee ctr cockpit. It is a lot of work but will give space for Solar and water collection. solar will have shade issues and will get shade tolerant panels as a result.
All things are a compromise - am trying to do it so most if not all plexiglass will remove to allow for ventelation.
Had advantage of an preexisting windshield that was rotting out rapidly. Used it as template and built from there - so far so good, - getting it to look good is to be determined.
Todd
I am thinking about putting a hard dodger on my catalina 30, IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS, please e-mail me at realitycaptain@yahoo, any help would be appreciated. I sail in s.e. alaska would be nice to be dry and warm.
check out www.tartarooga.com
They make a lot of hard dodgers and they have molds to make them for a lot of boats.
They are located in Sidney BC and can be contacted via their website. Their website has a lot of pictures of boats with the hard dodger.
There is a place here in Bellingham I should remember that made one for a friend of mine''s Ericson, but I don''t.
Now that I have seen some of these dodgers and bimini''s in action I am sold on them. I also like being warm and dry and on a 16 hour passage in January I was happy to have my pilothouse. My boat has pretty good visibility of both sails and the water around and particularly in front that I haven''t found to be the case in many of the larger pilothouse boats I have been looking at, which led to my interest in cockpit enclosures. The view forward is really important when there are so many huge trees and crab traps in the water. My boat is too small with the boom hanging over the whole cockpit to get a dodger and bimini though.
I also found a propane heater called Mr. Heat that gets about 6 hours from the one pound cans they sell everywhere. It would work great in an enclosure.
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