Mark,

After Reg Lake's demo at R2K2 on Sprayskirt making, I went and bought a roll of Neoprene (1/8 Nylon one side) and gave it a shot. It works great, especially compared to my Nylon sprayskirt. After a good rolling session, I might have 1/4 of leakage into the cockpit.

If you glue it properly, which isn't hard, you have nothing to worry about with the strentgh of the glue. I was amazed at the strength of the glued joint. I did some test pieces to make sure I had an OK technique and tested them to failure. I did some with a butt joint and some with a lap joint, with about 1/2 inch of overlap. I was surprised to find that the butt joint was much stronger, failing at a stretch way beyond anything that would be seen in normal use. And the gluing is really pretty easy to do. Since then I have also made a hood to keep the head warm during those cold water rolling sessions and have a pair of neoprene shorts on the drawing board.

-John D.

: Chip,
: Being lazy, and because most of these are for people taking the class, I was
: hoping for an off the shelf thing, but I think I will look into that for
: myself or others interested in making one at home. It is funny, most
: people build their boat and think they can't make a skirt (of course I
: messed up my wife's sewing machine making a tent once...) One question-
: does a skirt glued together without any stitching hold together well? I
: guess even if they don't, it may be easy enough and cheap enough to make
: them as needed. Thanks for the info, and I will check out the site!
: Mark