Shade

Since it is summer in Florida and we are largely without air conditioning away from the dock, shade for the boat became a priority. I spent a couple of days perusing the net and decided not to go with boat specific options which can be hundreds of dollars if not over a grand. I ended up with a few smallish white tarps held down with bungees. The one on the bow and the two in the middle are off the shelf. They've held up nicely even in 25-30+ knot gusts without flapping.

I added two more along the sides of the cockpit for shade and a little more privacy. They were cut from the sides of a fourth tarp. The cut edge was seamed by a local sailmaker conveniently named Stitch. The highly technical grommet installation along the cut edge I saved for myself, and managed to not hammer any appendages.

All in all a good addition for very little money. The forward shade has the additional bonuses of funneling wind to the forward three hatches, and even keeps the rain out of the forward cabin hatches if the wind isn't blowing too hard. And I can close the hatches from inside the boat without having to go up top and disconnect anything, which was a weak point of a similar wind scoop that came with the boat. The mid and cockpit tarps are usually edge on to the wind so don't block much of the breeze. Between the shade and spraying off with cool water on the sugar scoop the hottest part of the afternoon is tolerable as long as you're not doing much, which works out just fine.

I had Stitch put together an additional pair of shades for along the cockpit but made out of shadecloth, but I haven't tried those out yet since the tarps have worked out so well.