THE WESTERN WAY

Instead of buying a pricey custom canvas awning for my schooner, I made my own "covered wagon."

- ROGER HUGHES

If a sailboat lies unattended even for a short time, its decks and canvas can quickly become grubby from bird droppings and windblown dust. I have counted 50 of the little darlings perched along the triatic stay on my schooner Britannia, all having a merry chirp while doing other things.

I spent a lot of time looking at intricate, expensive devices that are supposed to frighten birds off my boat, but it's practically impossible to keep them off every part of the deck and rigging, where they sometimes land on vertical wires. I finally concluded that the cheapest, most effective solution is a simple awning.

There are multiple benefits to a good awning. I also wanted to protect the centercockpit canvas Bimini top on Britannia, to shield it from the fierce Florida sun as much as from rain and bird droppings. And a good awning keeps the temperature down inside the boat-in Britannia's case, by some 10 degrees Fahrenheit when it's 90 degrees outside.

I asked all the local canvasmakers and sailmakers, and I received lots of advice about what material was best, along with a variety of cost estimates. These varied from "we'll beat any price" to "get a second mortgage." The average estimate was $1,480, which was well over my budget, so I considered making an awning myself.

The simplest, cheapest way to make an awning is to buy a tarp, drape it over a boom, and then attach it to lifelines with bungee cords to form a simple tent. The main boom on Britannia passes directly over the cockpit, and most tarps have eyelets every 18 inches or so, which meant that threading bungee cord through them and then hooking the other end to the rails was simplicity itself.