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It’s Curtain Time!!

mpearson

Mark Pearson
Staff member
Have you made or installed any curtains/window coverings on your Morgan 38?

As I’ve said, one of our best upgrades we’ve done is installing New Found Metals stainless portlights. Amoungst other benefits, the glass is basically crystal clear so we can see out great. And others on a dock can see in. And the sunshine can get in.

So I’ve made some curtains. The requirements/desires:
  • When we are tied to a dock, we want the privacy of people not seeing inside.
  • On summer days when we can sleep in, we don’t want direct sunshine pouring in before we want to get up. We didn’t want complete “black out” curtains, but wanted to knock the sun back a few notches.
  • We didn’t want decorative curtains, and these are only functional. Therefore we wanted low volume and for them to be invisible when not in use.
  • We wanted an easy way to take them off, and stow them in a small space.
  • Our vanity requirement is we wanted them to match the canvas already on Zia.
We are happy with the end product. I used Sunbrella Marine fabric, with 1” binder around the outside. They are attached with snaps on the tops and bottom with webbing on the bottom so that the snaps are on the underside of the paneling and not visible. The upper snaps are on Trim pieces and did not involve drilling into the cabin walls.

Here is a curtain installed. This is one of the large portlights:
F0169E37-D92E-487B-A653-1C8845EF936A.jpeg

Here is the same portlight with the curtain removed. You can see the 3 snaps on the trim above.

E2398004-3A32-4626-BD2D-596FF27231B1.jpeg

The bigger Portlights (like above) have 3 webbing straps on the bottom. The smaller ones have only 1 strap and it works fine, as shown below.
97D5CE3F-9489-40BB-98B3-C6268E5E4D5E.jpeg

Here is how a large portlight covering looks sitting up on the deck.

2C95D170-BA26-4E2E-92EE-FD9619D53648.jpeg

And finally, here is what they look like with all 8 of them taken off and rolled up for storage. Not a lot of space required.
892CFA6D-DEFA-4681-85E4-EC3DA2B3B2A1.jpeg
A Suz realization is that, even though we have not experienced window coverings on Zia for almost 8yrs, now that we have them, we can’t imagine being without. They are so delightful in their privacy providing quality in the evenings at the dock, especially during busy cruise season and they have given us the ‘gift’ of disconnecting from a schedule, allowing us to sleep in and to just be.

A final thought: to make total “black out” curtains, I think if I’d used two layers of Sunbrella fabric there would be near-zero light let through.

Let us know if anyone has done some other kind of curtains.

Cheers!
-Mark (and Suz)
 
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Mark
I love the simplicity of your curtains. Ours are held by a rather fragile plastic set of rails. May have to rethink the system. Thanks.

A product that we found that works well for the hatches is the OceanAir units. They are frames that mount inside on the hatch and have a roll out bug screen on on side and a shade that rolls out on the other. We have been using them for about five years now and they are wonderful. The screens are easy and the shades keep the bright sun out of the inside of the boat. When I get to the boat today I'll take some photos and post them later on. If you check out the "Ahoy Captain" website, you can see how they work.

Jim
 
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