For several years, we have been toying with the idea of making our own dodger for our 1974 C27. The price of a custom made dodger is too high for us to justify yet the desire to have the extra "virtual" room in the cabin as well as obtain the weather shielding has been great. We have been studying friend's dodgers for a few seasons and looking at the Sailrite Kits. This year we took the plunge.

Dodger kits are available in several forms from Sailrite. They can be purchased in different sizes, with stainless or aluminum bows, and as 2 or 3 bow versions. From the Sailrite catalog, we determined that a 2 bow kit, with 84 inch maximum width would suit our purposes. We decided to buy the aluminum frame. The stainless frame would be sturdier but never having made a dodger, we were reluctant to make the additional investment right away. The aluminum kit sold for about $350, the stainless kit was an additional $200 or so.

Buying a Sailrite kit allows you to choose from several Sunbrella colors - we chose Sapphire Blue. This is not a stock Sailrite color so we had to buy a minimum of 10 yards. The dodger uses about 8, we bought enough to make a new sail cover as well.

Construction of the kit involves several steps. First the frame is constructed on the boat. Each frame bow consists of 3 pieces. The center bowed piece and two prebent curved pieces. They must be cut to length for the installation. We spent about 3 hours fitting the frame (2 bows). Once the frame is in place, it is secured with strapping tape to hold in for the second step - the pattern fitting. Tape strips are added to the frame to be used later as seam alignment marks.

Original Dodger Design (from Sailrite)

Modified Dodger Design

We took the liberty of modifying the Sailrite design. Here is where lots of pictures of dodgers you like come in handy. Much time was spent studying other people's pictures. In our version, the side curtains become very large (and have a lot of "glass"). The top and front extend over the side but do not follow the frame lines as in the original. To give us a line to measure to we taped a scrap of the frame tubing across the side of the frame at the right height. The older C27's have no sea hood to support a dodger. Again looking at other boats provided a solution. Options included: making a sea hood, making a support strut across the hatch, using snap type fasteners on the hatch, or the one we chose - using a batten within a fabric sleeve to span the distance between the hatch slides. Teak blocks were added to the deck house on either side of the companionway to allow attachment of the dodger front with the snap fasteners in sheer rather than tension.

Major Dodger Sections

Pattern fitting is best done on a quiet windless day. First the top section is draped on the frame, Sailrite's instructions are pretty clear as to what the objective is, and how to achieve it, and in little time the top pattern piece is ready. The instructions have you remove the top piece to fit the front. We decided that we wanted to keep the top in place while fitting the front (and sides). This worked out OK but care is needed to be sure that when marking the new pieces the seam alignment marks are visible. Here is where the wind causes problems. We had a light but somewhat gusty breeze that kept moving the front piece about. We ended up cutting holes in the front to allow air to flow through it. Once the front is marked, the sides are done in the same way.

Making the pattern pieces took an additional several hours. Once these were complete, we took the pattern home and sewed it together. It was then fit to the frame. It fit well.

The next step is to use the pattern pieces to cut out the real fabric. Once again the top is the first piece. The top piece has two zippered pockets sewn to the underside to enable removing the finished dodger from the frame without disassembly. The zippers took me a while to get the hang of. In particular, the orientation of in and out was a bit confusing. Be sure you have a clear vision of what the finished product is to look like before you cut the zippers. (This is one of those measure twice, cut once times). Fortunately, my mistake of cutting the wrong end off on the first set didn't cause big problems as there was enough left to work with.

After the top is cut and the rear frame pocket sewn to it, work begins on the front piece. Once the front fabric is cut, the windows are sewn into place. This required another trip to the boat and some more studying of the picture collection to make sure where the windows were to go. We decided to give a 2 inch fabric "frame" around the glass. The rest was to become glass.

For our purposes, we decided that a zippered window in the center and two side window would fit nicely. The zippered window was made 36 inches wide - approximately the same width as the top of the companionway (A 4 inch frame was allowed below the center window for a future zipper). Each window was installed by sewing the glass to the Sunbrella, then cutting the Sunbrella opening out and finally hemming the cutout to prevent unraveling.

By this time we had exhausted the supply of window material that had been supplied with the kit. We also had grand desires as far as zippered panels go, so an order was place with Sailrite for additional window material and zippers.

While waiting for the extra materials, the front piece was sewn to the top. This is where the seam alignment marks are critical. This seam also contains the front zipper pocket for the forward bow. The hatch slider section was also sewn in although the ends were left unfinished.

Now it was time again to fit what was done. We had purposely left the lower edge and front slider section unfinished. With all bow pockets in place we could put the dodger on the frame and for the first time pull tight. This allowed us to accurately position the snap fasteners on the deck blocks as well as on the hatch sliders. We marked any holes necessary (deck fed halyards - both on the port side) and took it home again for more sewing.

One of the problems noticed was that once the hatch slider batten section was tight, the hatch was difficult to move. Forcing the hatch might tear the dodger fabric so slits were cut in the dodger at the stress points and reinforced with leather (provided with the kit). Once again the whole thing was carted to the boat for another fitting. So far the fittings have resulted in little modifications.

Now happy with the fit of the top and front, it was time to make the sides. The material from Sailrite had arrived so off we went. With the top and front panels in place on the frame, the side patterns were tested to be sure that they still fit. Any slight modifications were noted.

The side panels were constructed in the same manner as the front. The Sunbrella fabric was cut to shape and then window material sewn in place. The Sunbrella was cut out and the edges hemmed.

The original intent was to install a zipper in the seam between the side panels and the main section. After discussing this with several boats in the New England area, most seemed to agree that rarely had they removed the side panels. All agreed that a zippered front window was necessary. This simplified the next assembly step by allowing us to skip a zipper (or 2). The side panels were sewn to the front/top assembly. Again the alignment marks were crucial.

Finally the whole thing was taken to the boat to fit and install the snaps for the side curtains. It fit pretty well. We had made sure that the winch handles could swing freely without hitting the side curtains. Somehow we had allowed and error to slip in and on the port side only we were about 1/2 inch too big. This was easily remedied by cutting back the curtain edge a bit and rehemming.

The next step was to install the zippers for the front window. Working with the dodger was becoming increasingly difficult. The assembly was bulky and heavy. Our Sear sewing machine had long been struggling with feeding the fabric although it seemed to stitch well as long as we could keep the feed even. We found that tissue paper kept the window plastic from sticking to the machine and made the zipper work easier to do. Even if the tissue paper ended up in the seam (which it did every time) it was easily removed.

The window zippers consisted of one along either side and one across the bottom. We're getting close...

The last step was to finish the seams inside the dodger. Up until now, all the edges are ragged. We decided to just fold the edges in upon themselves and add a line of stitching. Finally we're done!

Finished Dodger - Front View

Finished Dodger - Aft View

Hints and Construction Tips

The home sewing machine (a 20 year old Sears machine with metal gearing) worked fine as far as being able to stitch the fabric. We used an "even-feed" foot available at your local sewing center. This seemed to help with the cloth feed but even so the dodger becomes very bulky once many panels are together. Feeding the fabric became difficult. We worked on the dining room table with the machine located off center so that we had a large workspace on which to move the dodger as necessary. As mentioned above, tissue paper helps keep the glass from sticking to the table and machine.

A big key was to not try to go fast. A slow to moderate stitching speed worked well giving us fairly even stitches and mostly straight seams. Sailrite supplies a double stick tape that is used to tape seam edges together before sewing. It is a lifesaver when it comes to making good seams with no puckering. The first zipper pocket we put together we used just pins to hold things together and ended up with a serpentine-like edge. After disassembling and using the tape, everything came out straight and smooth.

We would like to thank Bill H. for allowing us to reproduce this article!