Project: Cheap and easy companionway screens

[wikakaru]

Yesterday I finished a simple, inexpensive companionway screen for our CD22. It's made of 2 pieces of 1/2" PVC pipe ($1.39 each), fiberglass screening ($8.48) and a few staples. Of course the staples will soon rust; I will replace them with sewn stitches when I get access to a sewing machine.

When constructing a screen like this it is important to leave a little flap at the top to fill the gap where the companionway arches above horizontal, which is why there are two "hems" for the top piece of pipe, but only one for the bottom.

It rolls away and stores in very little space.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

Companionway screen construction.jpg (277.73 KiB) Viewed 911 times

Companionway screen.JPG (211.34 KiB) Viewed 911 times

[Jim Walsh]

The most simple effective design I’ve ever seen. I don’t have to deal with insects, thank goodness.

[wikakaru]

The most simple effective design I’ve ever seen. I don’t have to deal with insects, thank goodness.

Thanks! When you spend many a night awake with mosquitoes whining in your ears, it's a powerful incentive to come up with a screen design that works!

I don't think I've ever been anywhere that didn't have a problem with some kind of annoying insect--mosquitoes, flies, sand gnats, whatever. How lucky you are to not have to deal with them!

Jim

[John Stone]

The most simple effective design I’ve ever seen. I don’t have to deal with insects, thank goodness.

I don't think I've ever been anywhere that didn't have a problem with some kind of annoying insect--mosquitoes, flies, sand gnats, whatever. How lucky you are to not have to deal with them!

Jim

Very clever and simple design. Well done.

I spent a fair amount of time building teak framed companionway screen drop boards for the Far Reach. Probably not any more effective than your design. But, I have never had to use them. So far we have managed to avoid skeeters or biting gnats. In my two seasons of sailing in the Caribbean we never had bugs on board. We always anchored out. Also, 98 percent of the time there is a trade wind blowing which is a big help. Those that anchored too close to the shore had visitors though. And the sailors that took their boats into a marina or were in a boatyard were savaged by skeeters and gnats and all kinds of creepy-crawlies. So bug screen are a life support system for those situations.

We certainly have skeeters in NC. But anchoring out is a big help here too as well, though not as much as in the Caribbean. Our solution here is we just don’t sail in the summer. Not so much to avoid bugs as it’s just too hot.

[wikakaru]

In my two seasons of sailing in the Caribbean we never had bugs on board. We always anchored out. Also, 98 percent of the time there is a trade wind blowing which is a big help. Those that anchored too close to the shore had visitors though.

I must be one of those folks who anchored "too close". I hate rolly anchorages. I like anchoring way up a creek where the water is as still as a mill pond. For me good screens are essential cruising gear. I use them all the time.

My idea of a good anchorage in the Virgin Islands is Water Creek, Hurricane Hole (just east of Coral Harbor), St. John, USVI. See the blue anchor symbol in the chart below.

St. John Chart.jpg (117.11 KiB) Viewed 854 times

In North Carolina, I like Broad Creek off the Neuse River.

Broad Creek NC.jpg (133.5 KiB) Viewed 854 times

You must be one of those hardy souls who says the roll just "rocks me to sleep like a baby". I'm definitely not one of those people.

Smooth sailing (and anchoring),

Jim

[John Stone]

Have you been back since Irma? Coral Harbor was wiped out. I anchored there in Jan. Had no trouble with bugs. Same with Francis Bay, Great Harbor JVD, Cane Garden Bay, Caneel Bay, Brewers Bay, Culebra, etc etc. All good. No bugs. Tucked in but not right next to the shore. I absolutely want to have a breeze coming through the boat. And, without an engine I don’t like getting boxed against the shoreline by other boats. I only recall a couple of what I would call rolly anchorages. I don’t really notice it most times...unless plates are sliding across the table. And it’s more often a result of the passing ferries and sport fishing boats than ground swell.

Broad Creek is fine in the late fall, winter, and spring. But summer, you couldn’t pay me to go up there. Bugs are horrible. There is no wind in there either. Totally cut off. But if you want to go there you’ll have it all to yourself!

I was visited by a few skeeters on South River in late July one year when the wind died. Otherwise it was OK. Upper Broad Creek was OK too if the air was moving. That’s the nice thing about the eastern Caribbean, the trades are almost always blowing. Very few windlass days or nights.

[wikakaru]

Hi John,

I haven't been to the Virgin Islands since 2001. Lots of development and hurricanes since then. I'm sure it's all different, though the area I mentioned around St. John is part of Virgin Islands National Park, so I expect it has changed the least.

I'm sure our definitions of rolly are not the same. Francis Bay, Great Harbour, Cane Garden Bay, Caneel Bay, and Brewers Bay are not on my list of "Jim approved" anchorages. In my experience the pernicious trade-wind swell finds its way around virtually every corner. I once spent a night anchored behind Dominica where the roll was worse than most nights I have spent on passage. A good rule of thumb for me is if I can see unbroken horizon anywhere from my anchorage, I probably won't like it. I may tolerate it, but I won't like it. In the whole 500+ miles from the VI to Grenada there are only a half-dozen "Jim approved" anchorages. Most people call those places hurricane holes. Of the ones you mentioned, Culebra is the only one that is "Jim approved".

In addition to rolly anchorages, my second bane is heat. If high temperatures are above 75F, or low temperatures are above 59F, I don't want to be there. It took me a year in the Caribbean to learn that about myself. When I bring climate into the picture, there are zero "Jim approved" anchorages in the whole Caribbean at any time of year. You are right about North Carolina in the summer. I would wilt in Broad Creek in July. We usually passed through in May and late October or early November.

My third bane is noise. Beach bars pounding a bass beat from their sound systems until 0400 are my idea of torture; I experienced it all over the Caribbean. I guest I'm just an old curmudgeon.

That's why I now spend long summers in Maine: pleasant (to me, most people would say "cool" or "cold") temperatures and a million "Jim approved" quiet, cool, mill-pond calm anchorages. My favorite time is mid-May and late September, when most of the summer residents and transient cruisers are absent. We are just getting into the best Maine has to offer, at least by my tastes. In another month it will be cool enough to leave here.

So bringing the discussion back to screens, most of the places I like to be, at the times I like to be there, require a really good set of screens. And to make matters worse, mosquitoes love me. I can be sitting in a group of a dozen people, and I'm the only one getting bitten. I really need to be able to keep those blood-suckers outside where they belong!

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Hi John,

I haven't been to the Virgin Islands since 2001. Lots of development and hurricanes since then. I'm sure it's all different, though the area I mentioned around St. John is part of Virgin Islands National Park, so I expect it has changed the least.

I'm sure our definitions of rolly are not the same. Francis Bay, Great Harbour, Cane Garden Bay, Caneel Bay, and Brewers Bay are not on my list of "Jim approved" anchorages. In my experience the pernicious trade-wind swell finds its way around virtually every corner. I once spent a night anchored behind Dominica where the roll was worse than most nights I have spent on passage. A good rule of thumb for me is if I can see unbroken horizon anywhere from my anchorage, I probably won't like it. I may tolerate it, but I won't like it. In the whole 500+ miles from the VI to Grenada there are only a half-dozen "Jim approved" anchorages. Most people call those places hurricane holes. Of the ones you mentioned, Culebra is the only one that is "Jim approved".


In addition to rolly anchorages, my second bane is heat. If high temperatures are above 75F, or low temperatures are above 59F, I don't want to be there. It took me a year in the Caribbean to learn that about myself. When I bring climate into the picture, there are zero "Jim approved" anchorages in the whole Caribbean at any time of year. You are right about North Carolina in the summer. I would wilt in Broad Creek in July. We usually passed through in May and late October or early November.

My third bane is noise. Beach bars pounding a bass beat from their sound systems until 0400 are my idea of torture; I experienced it all over the Caribbean. I guest I'm just an old curmudgeon.

That's why I now spend long summers in Maine: pleasant (to me, most people would say "cool" or "cold") temperatures and a million "Jim approved" quiet, cool, mill-pond calm anchorages. My favorite time is mid-May and late September, when most of the summer residents and transient cruisers are absent. We are just getting into the best Maine has to offer, at least by my tastes. In another month it will be cool enough to leave here.

So bringing the discussion back to screens, most of the places I like to be, at the times I like to be there, require a really good set of screens. And to make matters worse, mosquitoes love me. I can be sitting in a group of a dozen people, and I'm the only one getting bitten. I really need to be able to keep those blood-suckers outside where they belong!

Smooth sailing,

Jim

Jim
Well you know what you like and what you don’t like. A lot of people can’t say the same. So, here’s to wishing you a bug free and smooth, quiet anchorage in Maine this fall.

[fmueller]

Clever as all get out Jim ... I've been scratching my head about a companion way screen for a while ...

What do you do for your hatch(s) ?

thanks

Fred

[wikakaru]

Fred,

I bought the pre-made porthole screens from Spartan for the oval ports. Well worth the cost.

The CD22 has only one opening hatch, and as a temporary solution I just draped a large piece of screen over the open hatch from the outside. I have the supplies to make a proper screen for the hatch that is operated from inside, but haven't actually constructed it yet. When I get it done I will post photos. Unfortunately, haul out day will be this week. Then the boat gets banished like a fairytale princess to a virtually unreachable island. The new screen will have to wait until next year.

Smooth sailing,

Jim