Last Updated on October 18, 2023 by Jill
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I am not sure if you remember my earlier post WAY back in April about Dinghy Chaps. Well….They are FINALLY complete. I actually completed them just before July 4th but I was so busy with family visiting that I decided to wait until those were all complete.
So, I am super excited about this task being done. This was probably, No! Definitely the biggest and complex sewing project I have ever done. Hopefully, it will be the most difficult project I ever do and if not I feel like if I can manage this I can sew a lot better than I originally thought. The company we bought our sewing machine from (Sailrite) has a video on how to make dinghy chaps, however, our dinghy is A LOT bigger than the one in the video so, I had to improvise on several things. I did get a little help from my mom via Facetime. She is a sewing Queen and I am grateful for her expertise and knowledge. Let me break down how I did it, and how we attached it to the dinghy.
The Process
In the video, they teach you how to make your own pattern which was very helpful. Plastic sheeting is what I used instead of the clear 12 gauge plastipane that they used. I made this decision because we already had it on hand. I did have to add some extra triangle patches in my patterns on the bow and two corners due to the large size so I could get the fabric to lay flat. On the back of their dinghy, their tubes come almost a point and ours does not so we did not use the mesh at the back of the boat as seen in the video. They used a rope and marine ratchet and hooks to tighten the chaps around the tubes we opted to put snaps on the outside and inside of the boat instead. In the video they do use the snaps on the inside of the dinghy, these snaps are amazing and work very well so far.
I took pictures during the process and compiled them into a video to make it easier to view. I did not videotape how I made my chaps. The Sailrite video has already done such a great job of this. You can reach their video by clicking on Video or going to their website www.sailrite.com and looking for the How-to Project & Guides tab. They do have lots of different videos on making all kinds of things for your boat/RV, etc. Check it out.
My Video
This is a photo compilation of pictures I took and assembled into a video for easier viewing. In the video you will see Izzy our Dog sitting on the fabric, not being a big helper. The funny story is she has a pillow that she sleeps on the couch in our living room. While I was cutting fabric my butt got sore and she wasn’t using it so, I grabbed it and sat on it. As soon as I sat on the pillow she got up from where she was sitting and came over and sat right in front of me and huffed and puffed for a minute. Pretty sure she was letting me know how displeased she was that I was using her pillow. It was pretty funny even though you can’t see all of that happen in the video. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the chaps I made.
