bimini - get here (UK) or in the med?

roam

roam

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we're hoping to set sail in june and don't yet have a bimini which we have been considering.

can anyone advise us to get it before we go (we could use it for weather protection en route esp in port) or wait till we get to the med (it wd be lots cheaper and people there have lots more experience of making them)?

i can imagine that turkey may be a good place to get one made, but we don't anticipate being there till 2006/07.

we asked at the boat show and to have one custom made wd be around 1000 quid. if we wanted side panels, that obviously adds to the cost.

we have a Rival 34 with a difficult transom, so feel ready made one would not be ideal, unless anyone else knows better?

any suggestions/ comments?

many thanks
 
i'd get it somewhere you have plenty of time - probably here and now. Costs shoot up in the med in the summer. Order one now and they'll have time to fit it it AND do the job right. You will need one from mid france onwards and withh an outdoors life should hide under it most all the time really, imho. Not quite sure if a supercheap med supplier will be that mucg better really - bimini quality from uk suppliers is always under the microscope because users here see them as having to be rainproof - in the med, it's just to deflect the sun cos a good med downpour is beyond almost anything to keep the rain off - and not that common. all imho.

oh and one other thing about the sides for sun protection: all you need is for them to sew a "half zip" onto sides and back edges and give you a piece of material with tother half of the zip on one side and shockcords/eyelets along the other side. Then , at anchor, you just attach the extra piece according to where the sun is and attach tother side by twangering it on to the guardrails. These roving zip-onnable strips of sunshade are officially known as teecee-ems :-)
 
Not sure if they do them in the UK but in France they sell or the alloy rods, hinges corners to make them up yourself. You chould make the frame and fit it then buy the sumbrella in spain or fance and get it run up either by a sail loft or in spain at one of those shops that do house sun shades as well as boaty things.. should get the priced down by half... The UK people are not that used to making biminis
 
We had a full cockpit canopy convertible to bimini made for our previous boat, primarily as a wind & rain stopper in the UK. With our latest boat we inherited a bimini as the boat had just returned from the Med, suprisingly in year one in UK and Britanny waters we used this quite often as a sun protector! We then had the bimini and sprayhood recovered last year and took the opportunity to make the system convertible into a full cockpit canopy as well, with side and stern zip-ins as well as some extra 'half-sides' in a UV stopping aertex for low sun. With this our default even in the UK is the bimini, the hood normally being stowed folded back against a stern gantry under a zip-up cover. The bimini can be deployed in a couple of minutes and in 5 minutes more we can have total weather protection.

We had ours made by Quay Sails in Poole who are very good with both designing and making such systems. I'm not sure about pricing in the med but our lot came to around £2100 and we already had the S/S frames for both bimini and sprayhood. However our package included also new dodgers, recovering the sprayhood, a gantry cover (permanent helmsman shade) and a new mainsail cover and our set up is very much bigger than it would be on a Rival 34 cockpit.

If you can afford it do it, we used our system extensively last year even in Bimini format cruising from Poole to S Britanny. The weather protection will still come into it's own even in the med and the smaller the boat the more this applies IMO as it provides significantly more living space, we can still eat and lounge out in the cockpit whatever the weather does.
 
Do it soon as you can.

You will want it on the way down and will need it there.
In winter we have a cockpit tent that is up most of the time, then from May to October the Bimini is up constantly, don't go fo a folding one as you want it to keep dew off at night. We have sides that we can move as someone suggested, and in the summer we had to make up other shades to cover the whole of the back deck and forward all the way to the boom, to help keep the boat cool and stop fair skinned people frying, and people tell us last year was'nt that hot in the Med.
 
I picked up a Lalizas catalogue in Spain last year - they do alloy and S/steel bimini kits, in many size permutations and styles.

Unfortunately they didn't suit me as I have inboard lower shrouds at my cockpit coamings, and will have to go custom, when I've figured out my design. However, I'm sure that they would suit yours.

Don't recall exact prices, but they were of order £300-£400 complete. Will dig out catalogue when I'm aboard later this week and let you know. There are Lalizas agents in Uk, but don't know if they do biminis here.

I priced up a custom job (early design ideas!) in Lagos, and they were more expensive than in UK.
 
thanks phil - have ordered the catalogue.

we quite like the idea of adding side shades/all round cover which i guess would be more difficult on the ready-made variety.

i suppose the thing to do is to get a few quotes.
 
It will probably be cheaper to get it in the MED - if you pick th eright place but it will be far from simple.

The simplest way to get it would be to have it made and fitted before you leave. You will need it from April onwards in the MED and maybe earlier.

On the other hand if you can't afford it or can't wait then just go. these things can be sorted out as you sail. we survived int eh med for 2 years with a awning made from old enterprise sails which we could use while sailing and in port.

Wanted a bimini but never seemed to get around to it. However before we go next time I'm haveing one made here. I've got a quote from C&J sitting here that i need to action.......
 
Just joined and I know Im late in on this one ...
Im also taking my boat to the Med in June and faced the same dilema. I didnt want to mess about when I got to Greece but I was also quoted over 1000 GBP for custom bimini in UK.I also couldnt get anyone to come to the boat and measure up. Poole is such a backwater !?

In the end I took a chance and bought one mail order from the US at Boatcoverdirect web page
The bimini was with me within a week and despite having to hand over loads of import duty and VAT etc I still got a bimini for around 500 GBP.
Time will tel if its any good.
 
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