Chichester Yacht Club Magazine January 2020 | Page 16

Measuring up
By Kate Williamson
Introduction
In my last article, I was looking at the choice of materials, needles, thread, and all the aspects that need to be
considered when beginning a project of this nature. In this article, I am looking at the importance of templating for
your cushions, and how to go about that successfully.
We have already talked about the pile or nap of the fabric to be used, so at this point, it is worth taking a moment to
consider the viewing line, and what you see when you stand in the cockpit or the saloon.
Draw an outline of your boat. (In my case I found an example of the layout in a magazine.) As you stand, where are
the main points you see when you enter the boat? You are looking to determine your Vision Line (VL) Here; the
vision line runs from aft to forward along the middle of the boat, down the centre line.
Next:- Number your cushions. When templates are cut out, they can look very similar. Alarmingly there are 28
cushions on Wizard if you include the berths.
I have had many people say to me use the old cushions as a template, but if you do that, and they have become
misshapen over time, or squashed, your new cushions will not fit quite as well as if you had gone back to basics and
templated the base/ bench from scratch. Errors can creep in so easily, as I discovered to my frustration when preparing
the cockpit seat backrests. In the case of Wizard, the backrests are made into two “D” shaped rolls, with the fabric
then stapled onto a backboard.
I did template the backrest backboard but finding it difficult to explain what I wanted with the foam; it was easier to
give Falcon Fabrics the old foam, which they copied. However, I failed to appreciate that the stitched coverings took
into account a variety of angles since Sunseekers of that vintage tended to have hexagonal cockpits.
The stitching produced the shaping, rather than the foam. As a result, when the foam came back, it did not take into
account the offset angle, and I had to undo and remake one of the backrests, making the appropriate adjustment, as
you can see from the gaping space below. The moral of this example is that careful templating will produce a better
result.
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