Going Rate for a new Sprayhood

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bedouin

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I've just had a quote of a new Sprayhood for my Centurion 32 of about £750 (not including fitting).

Is that about right or can someone suggest a cheaper supplier?
 
bedouin said:
No - just a quote to recover existing frame.

It is not much less than the cost of a new sail, and I would have thought that the effort and materials are considerably less
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Sounds a lot. I'd have thought £400-500. Do you know who made the current one - they might have an existing pattern, which will make it cheaper and easier to produce.
 
Got a new spray hood (exc frame) for a Jeanneau SO36.2 for less than £400 (can't remember exactly) in Plymouth in 2010. Several makers around this price.
 
bedouin said:
I've just had a quote of a new Sprayhood for my Centurion 32 of about £750 (not including fitting).

Is that about right or can someone suggest a cheaper supplier?
Click to expand...

Seems expensive for new canvas only, and I wouldn't entertain NOT including fitting. It won't fit first time. New spray hood (with frame) for HR34 (without fixed windscreen) is about £400 (£750), From HR.
 
Stork_III said:
Seems expensive for new canvas only, and I wouldn't entertain NOT including fitting. It won't fit first time. New spray hood (with frame) for HR34 (without fixed windscreen) is about £400 (£750), From HR.
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How hard can it be to make your own using the old one as a pattern?That's what I plan to do anyway & then you only have to pay for the fabric & it should fit perfectly.
 
I have just had to order a new one because the stitching had gone and it was all coming apart, which was annoying as the canvas and acrylic has another few years to go. It is worth paying the extra for u/v resistant thread, although if this is the weakest area you would have thought this sort of thread should be standard......... :(
 
richardsn9 said:
I have just had to order a new one because the stitching had gone and it was all coming apart, which was annoying as the canvas and acrylic has another few years to go. It is worth paying the extra for u/v resistant thread, although if this is the weakest area you would have thought this sort of thread should be standard......... :(
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If it's just the thread then it's easy to repair.I have just done my boom cover using thread for sail repairing I bought from a chandlery.Very satisfying.
 
bedouin said:
No - just a quote to recover existing frame.

It is not much less than the cost of a new sail, and I would have thought that the effort and materials are considerably less
Click to expand...

Far too much money for canvas only. I got mine through Martex, frame and canvas for much less; but i had to trim it to size and fit it myself; still good after six years.
 
I paid £624 incl. VAT for one fitted to existing frame of a SADLER 29 in Winter 2010. Sounds pricey, maybe, but I noticed that it matched exactly the boomtop mainsail cover made 7 years earlier by the same people [Parker & Kaye] so it must be good material.
 
bedouin said:
I've just had a quote of a new Sprayhood for my Centurion 32 of about £750 (not including fitting).

Is that about right or can someone suggest a cheaper supplier?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can make one yourself.

I recently had a quote for new cockpit covers for my Nic 38, a second mortgage job! so I searched for a material supplier, decided on Sunbrella, bought a sewing machine on ebay was advised there is no such thing as a semi-industrial machine, but bought an older very strong domestic 'New Home' will do several layers of denim without a murmur, £100. The guy selling it was very helpful and steered me in the right direction for what I was going to do.
I bought from an American company 'Sailrite' they have everything, including a helpline and contact with experts to advise, which having never used a machine before I needed, and hundreds of 'how to' videos freely available, can't speak highly enough of them.

If you want to see the results PM me and I will send you photographs.
 
Stork_III said:
Good Luck. Why do you think the Professionals won't use old one as a template.
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;)
Thats totally correct. You can get a generic fit sprayhood for about £400 that you have to "fit" yourself. You need a professional weight machine to cope with the materials, as Acrylic and PVC will banjax the wife's little singer in 3 seconds. While it is no problem actually buying the materials either from Kayospruce or even PointNorth, it takes years of training to do it well (seeing as I'm currently training a youngster at the moment) so if you are happy with a sprayhood that looks like an re-cycled overcoat, carry on. You may find that lofts which supply such hood kits do not put a visible label on the hood, and for good reason.

Perhaps if I described the process, you'll see where the cost lies;

For a totally new hood. you have to visit the boat and measure for frames to design the hood. Even class boats get modified by their owners who all have differing preferences so you can never really just chuck a hood kit at a boat and expect it to fit, so all hoods, new and replacements, ought to be hand fitted.
Once the boat is measured, you go back to the loft and design the frames, usually with a lot of input from the client who will have their own ideas and which have to be worked around the actual geography of the boat. These frames are then made up by a trusted steelwork supplier, and they are not all equal, believe me.
Once the frames arrive, its back to the boat where the frames are fitted along with some (but sometimes not all) track and lift-the-dot studs as necessary. Sometimes, the shape of the hood when patterned dictates the actual position of the fittings, and patterning and fittings happen at the same time. This can only happen in dry and calm-ish weather, unless the boat is under cover.

Obviously the above steps are skipped with a replacement hood, but changes to hood geometry and wing size are still discussed with the client. Once patterned, it takes typically 10-12 hours to actually make the hood, and then go back to the boat and fit the hood, which is either left on if the season is near and the hood is paid for, or taken back to the loft for payment.

So to recap, a new hood takes:

Trip 1 to the boat to measure - travel time plus about 1-1.5 hours measurement.

Trip 2 to the boat to fit the frames, fittings and pattern the hood. This can take all day with a complex hood. Averages 3 hours given a straightforward patterning of existing frames.

Back at the loft, fairing up the pattern, marking, cutting and machining will take about 10-12 hours, about a day and a half for a "standard" two-bar hood with no unusual features.

Trip 3 to the boat, to fit the hood. Travel time plus 1-2 hours.

So what makes a good sprayhood?
Windows should be made of medium grade window acrylic, not the thin stuff (ie, dinghy sail weight, which has no strength) or too thick and cannot fold down properly.
All seams should have two rows of stitching, and be "felled", which means that one row of stitching is hidden from UV damage, thus the hood holds together longer.
Windows should have at least one, or on larger hoods, two "bars" of cloth down the middle, which makes replacement of the windows a far easier prospect. Some OEM hoods have one enormous piece of window acrylic only, and though this looks "cool" it cannot be replaced when it starts to haze over and go brittle.
Reinforcing ought to be done over every potential chafe point and always along the bottom edges of the hood, and should be done in a good grade of PVC. If lofts have to use acrylic only, it should be hot-cut and not just taped over with poly edging tape. Edges and corners should be rounded not square, as this induces weakness at strain points. Fittings should always be backed up with adequate sized PVC backing to prevent strain and point loading. The finger stripe and rear bar pockets should always be PVC and the frame itself should always have adequate bracing for its size, either with a webbing strap running down the aft of the wing, or for preference a separate webbing strap on a frame clamp going to its own webbing bridge. This allows the wings on larger boats with big hood wings to have the weather wing set up, providing protection to the cockpit, whilst the lee wing can be unhooked allowing easy sheet trimming. In many boats, the sheets winches can be so far forward, that a hood just interferes with them. By bracing the hood separately and not using the wing as the main hood support, this solves that problem. The whole ensemble ought to look like its was designed along with the boat, and not stuck on as an afterthought. A good new hood can "sell" a boat, whilst a old, or even new and poorly designed hood can have opposite effect.

I normally charge £550 for a replacement hood, unless its quite small and nearby. Steelwork charged at cost. As I supply high-end canvas work to both Sails & Canvas at Topsham, and through my own business, Pixie Marine Services, the pricing is the same. However, we only cover the River Exe, and the area within 1.5 hours drive of Exeter, (so thats Dartmouth to Lyme Regis).

You should also be aware that most boatyards and marinas now call themselves "full service yards" which means they like to add (at least) 15% to the bill for their own profit. Ostensibly, this is because they both "promote and guarantee" the quality of the work and the service. This is BS, and I'm fully insured anyway. We can, however, pattern and fit hoods to boats on moorings, given fine weather, but some yards can be "problematic" about access.

As for £750 for a new hood, if its to new frames and fittings, if the loft has to do a lot of travelling, it isn't unreasonable, but quite pricey if its just a replacement. In my humble professional opinion.
Hope this helps.
 
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