Home Built (?) Hard Dodger

[Loren Beach]

Not a current project, but something I have been sketching on and thinking about for several years.
I just did a coastal delivery on a Jason 35 with a nice frp dodger with glass windows. The visibility forward and the general strength was wonderful.
Since our our '95 vintage small dodger is nearing the end of the cloth & window life, we are thinking about a full size one next time around.

Anyone here ever made their own up or had one made?

I am envisioning something in light weight cored frp with acrylic or glass windows. The design would have to complement the look of the cabin angles and general shape. At least enough to blend in. I have seen quite a few dodgers that looked quite out-of-place on other sailboats.
Getting the balance right between function and style is tricky. In a "soft" dodger some of the best work I've seen is from a fellow up in Seattle.
http://www.iversonsdesign.com/index.html
While I might prefer a solid top, his cloth tops do show a lot of design background and experience.

Anyone with experiences and photos, feel free to add 'em.


Thanks,
Loren

edit: I have not found much on this subject on the web, but did find a couple of threads.
http://www.morganscloud.com/2008/06/20/homebuilt-hard-dodger/
http://marshalldesign.blogspot.com/2007/04/hard-dodger-test.html

 

[Dave Hussey]

I would like to be included in any response to this thread, because it has been an interest of mine as well. Here in the Pacific North West, the weather is often wet when any consistent wind blows, and a hard dodger sounds like the way to go.

 

[rwthomas1]

My dodger was replaced this year, the old one was disintegrating. I had planned to do a hard top for the existing dodger frame with "compression struts" on the forward bow as Iverson calls them. A hard top could be constructed fairly easily by bending structural foam or 1/8" marine plywood, laminated, to the existing frame and epoxying in place. Secure with zipties, etc. while the resin sets. Then any holes filled, the piece cut to size, sections of welting channel attached on the inside to hold the side curtains, etc. This would give two things: The watertight integrity of a solid top but the ability to have ventilation when the summer heat peaks. It also does not mess with the structure/appearance of the boat permanently. What you may love the look of a future buyer may hate....
RT

 

[rvivian]

Hard Dodger Project

I put a Yacht Constructors hard dodger on my E-29 a few years ago. Their gone now, but I just recently saw an ad on Portland Craigslist that someone is offering the dodgers (on the Coast?)

 

[Loren Beach]

I put a Yacht Constructors hard dodger on my E-29 a few years ago. Their gone now, but I just recently saw an ad on Portland Craigslist that someone is offering the dodgers (on the Coast?)

Here is a current link.
http://www.cascadeyachtworks.com/parts/dodgers/index.htm
This is one version of the hard dodger developed for the Cascade sailboats. There is another more rounded one-piece one, but the molds may have been retained by the original company, now sold and reorganized as Chinook Composites in Portland, OR.
Either one would look out of place on my boat.

I do get to look at lots of these dodgers, as there are a herd of Cascades in our YC.
No hard dodger to slow 'em down, but winning ocean racer Rain Drop moors near me...
(just to do some name dropping...)

LB

 

[Stu Jackson]

One of our guys built his own: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,4760.0.html

Don't know if Wavestopper is still in business.

 

[D & DM Cahill]

Loren. Attached are a few pictures of the hard dodger that came with our boat when we bought it. We will be the first to agree that it is not pretty but it is very stout, provides support for the solar panel and is very functional. It is built out of aluminum. I think the build concept was good but there should have been more thought and effort put into how the final product would blend with the boat style and lines. Hope maybe you can take some ideas from the pictures. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks. Dave Cahill

 

[Shamwari]

Hard Dodger thoughts

I went through this a couple of years ago with my e-39. I bought it because I liked the clean lines of the boat, but since putting the dodger on I find it's much nicer on the rainy days we get up here in BC.
I am a designer so I put a lot of thought into making it "fit the shape of the boat" and used Autocad 3d to look at varoius shapes before I started. I wanted something I could build myself so I bent the tubes with an electrical conduit bender, rolled the Aluminum sheet under a welding bottle, and sewed the sides on my old sewing machine.
I agonized over making it tall enough to stand under and still have forward visibility around it on each side. The e-39 has that raised curver ridge around the front of the cockpit and I wanted to kerep the curved lines rather than letting it get too square, so it curved the top round enough to allow me to stand under the centre, and curving down enough to see by either edge if I lean to the side.
It is hard to put a dodger on a flushdeck and not have it look too tall, and mine probably does, but I wouldn't trade the convenience for a sleeker shape now.

What I'm trying to say is make it work well first. I spend a lot of my life trying to make things look great, but if it doesn't work well because it is too low or doesn't reach back far enough you are going to be disappointed.

The only thing I would change is to use the hard polycarbonate windows - I used the soft plastic and am going tochange it this winter.

John Gleadle
Shanwari

 

[davisr]

Anybody ever had any problems with hard dodgers in gusty conditions or squalls? I've read about this before and have backed away from the thought of hard dodgers for this reason. I must, though, confess that I would prefer a permanently mounted hard dodger to a soft one, especially given the intensity of the sunshine and heat in this area for much of the year.

Thanks,
Roscoe

 

[Sven]

I bent the tubes with an electrical conduit bender

So you bent 1" SS with a manual conduit bender ? I thought SS would be too hard for that.

It also sounds as if you used aluminum as the top ?

Any pictures ?

Thanks,



-Sven

 

[Shamwari]

Photo for Sven

Hi Sven
I was able to bend SS fairly easily although it is quite limiting in that you only get one radius. When I wanted to bend a larger one I bent it around a cutout shape of plywood attached to a sturdy bench. You just need to make the shape smaller to account for the bendback.
I don't know how to add a photo but if someone can explain it I'll send one.

John Gleadle
jgleadle@3dservices.com

 

[Sven]

Hi John,

Thanks.

I don't know how to add a photo but if someone can explain it I'll send one.

After you edit a message scroll down a bit and click on manage attachments. Then click "browse" to fin the picture on your disk and upload.

That's it



-Sven

 

[Shamwari]

e-39 Dodger Photo

here is the photo. I think.

John Gleadle

 

[Sven]

here is the photo. I think.

It worked.

Looks very nice.

Thanks,



-Sven

 

[exoduse35]

Molding tricks...

This is probably better as a stand alone thread but here it goes. The simple ways to copy curves are to first tape out some reference lines. Then either place a pattern board vertical to the piece and then mount a pencil to a block then run the block across the curve. Or run a series of strips from it like a giant set of those things with the thousand pins to copy shapes. I use like a 1x6 pine and staple 1/8 lewan strips about 1/2" wide. then just use a french curve to connect the contact points. As I type it, it sounds harder than it is. If you can copy a curve then, then you can do one at the front and back. Then if you cut out those shapes and re align them you can then use them as the form to bend and secure a panel. this gives you a female mold in one dimension. From there you can cut to the desired shape for the second dimension. Then build up the perimeter for the third dimension. It is really not much harder to copy a simple curve than a flat surface. If you can remember to work in reverse a simple mold for a 1-off part is relatively cheep and easy to make with cheep wood and paneling. Then several coats of wax and some parting compound and glass & mat/roving/cloth and you can break apart the mold and you have a working part! I found that lining the mold with duct tape will also guarantee a separation of part & mold. This method is a bit crude so don't bother with gel coat as you will need to do a bit of sanding to remove wood grain and corner ooze, but these are easy as all the inside corners of the mold are the outside edges of the part. After fairing up the piece paint or gel coat can go on and your friends will think it was store bought! A hard dodger is a big project but it is doable! I would practice on a smaller project to get the basics down. but then it is just a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle as apposed to the 500 piece ones you just mastered! Hope this all makes sense It would be much better in a 5 minute video. Have fun, Edd

 

[Loren Beach]

Different Boat, but a nice dodger

Here are some photos of the custom molded frp dodger on the Jason 35 that I recently helped deliver. This is unusual in that the windows are safety glass. It was great to have clear vision forward all the time! The construction is balsa cored, IIRC.
The dodger is held down on a gasket with several ss bolts. It is removable but I doubt that it will be unless it or the boat needs refinishing someday. The owner just finished single handing for two months this summer in the islands near the BC coast. He likes the protection it provides.

Not an Ericson, but a nice example of a professional-quality dodger.

LB

 

[Loren Beach]

Finally getting closer to this (big) project, and it might help to bump this thread to bring it to the attention of newer site members.

Thanks.

 

[toddster]

I've been thinking that way too - we've had day after day after day of 30 knot plus winds and it's just not that much fun when there's so much spray coming off the bow that you can't see. Or open your mouth. Or maybe I'm getting too old for that kind of fun.

Still thinking and sketching and collecting photos... Although one day when I had the truck in Portland, I bought enough marine plywood to do the job, and a few more. I was thinking 3/8 plywood core skinned with fiberglass.

One of the Dashew books offers a set of design principles for dodgers. I think it's in the "Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia." I'm not sure that all of their ideas scale well to a 30-foot boat though. Probably best to go there for inspiration, rather than my mis-interpretation. But anyway...

The ones that I'm juggling:
1. Height at back of dodger = elevation of my nose when standing in the cockpit with bare feet. So I can stand up with the tiller in my hand and see over the dodger. (Sorry, all you guys stuck behind the wheel in the back of the cockpit...)

2. Rake the top down a bit forward
3. Try to match angles of the existing boat structure

4. Cover a shoulder-width seating zone in the cockpit. (Dashews say 2x shoulder width!) Not sure this is going to work, hence I am thinking (even farther in the future) of a removable piece of canvas to do this and a bit more when needed. (I note from his blog photos that this is pretty much what Kjell Stave did when he got his E29 to the South Pacific - though it looks like he cobbled it up with driftwood and a tarp! I guess you do what you gotta do.)

5. Top straight or curved? Curved as per the deck house would look better but might make the project just that much harder that I would never do it. And if one is thinking of putting flat solar panels on top, the curve would be hidden anyway. Of course, there are flexible solar panels... Probably going with two straight panels in an 11-degree peak, which approximates the cabin top and is what I did with the hatch, and is strong enough for a gorilla to jump up and down on it.

6. Overhang/eave or no overhang?

7. Opening windows or fixed? Currently thinking of one rectangular opening window in the middle and the others fixed - if only because the way I've drawn it (so far) it would be easier to build that way.

Anyway, I've made a variety of crude sketches, but keep coming back to something like this:




I guess it's time to break out the sticks and cardboard and try some mock-ups in three dimensions. If the wind ever calms down enough...

 

[Christian Williams]

Regarding the height of a hard dodger, I would like to report on a strange phenomenon.

Back in the day, we campaigned a Newick Native trimaran with no sliding hatch at all. We swung in and out of the cabin like monkeys. It sounds awful but nobody minded, even wives on a day sail. It was pretty counterintuitive.

In my current use of umbrella as bimini, I keep sawing more off the pole. You can't stand up under it. You have to slide under. But nobody complains. They feel snug. And of course the shade is always where it ought to be.

Herreschoff said, sitting headroom is fine and standing headroom is fine. What isn't fine is anything in between.

Possibly this could enter into design thinking.

 

[Christian Williams]

Guy builds hard dodger. Some endurance is required to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoNUowUE1uE