Two question, spay dodger on a garvey and raffia grass.

[Brandon Yuchasz]

Here is the boat I have questions about. Its my garvey I built a few years ago, 16 foot cedar planked. I hunted it last year open water with just a simply flip up grey blind on it.

Here it is with the blind up, not the best picture but its all I could find. Its a simple flip up fabric blind.

I have two items I am considering with the boat and I wanted to get your thoughts on it. The first is putting a spray dodger on it. Last year I ran the boat with the blind up a few times, there is also a piece of canvas that snaps across the front of the blind and it helped keep the boat dry in rough weather. Running with the blind up is no problem so I am considering putting dodger on the front that can be run in two positions, high or in a lower setting that makes it even with the top of the blind. I would want it to be able to snapped to the blind making it part of the blind when hunting. My thoughts are it would make for a dryer and safer ride. Also in the event that I every do need it to keep water out a dodger with an actual frame will be much better then a piece of canvas and a few snaps like it is now. So if you guys have ever done anything like that or even a two stage dodge like I mentioned please give me your feedback. I do want the dodger when in the lower position to not create a hole from above to spook birds. I am not concerned about building this myself I have been taking sewing lesions from Chuck but if anyone has recommendations on fabric that will be water proof and able to be painted I am all ears.


The second part of my question has to do with grassing the whole boat with raffia grass. I am going to order in bulk, it comes in 25 pounds bales. Is 25 pounds going to be enough? I am going to grass it in a marsh grass colored base and then add green a brown to blend into the cedar forest environment up here in the north woods. Hopefully looking like an island.

Thanks for any feedback guys.

 

[Chris S.]

I can help in a few places. The canvas I used for the dodger on my BBSB was from wally world. It is canvas on one side and a PVC rubber on the other side. It is water proof. When I did my dodger I doubled up the canvas I took the canvas and sewed the pvc side face to face so all the pvc was on the inside and canvas on the outside. That made it nice and heavy then I painted it with parkers to match the boat. The canvas was a light tan color to start with so I didn't paint the inside. This way it doesn't have that dark hole effect to passing birds. The canvas was very cheap compared to other places that I looked for canvas. It was only $3.97 a yard 3ftx5ft. I think the canvas ran me about $30. They have 2 colors the light tan I used and a weird green color. I can't post pics from my phone but you can see the pics of my dodger in my past post of my rebuild.

Also I don't think 25lbs will be enough for the whole boat. If I recall when gary march did his eastury like that he used 30lbs for a sneakbox. He may have done it thick and maybe you can streach the 25lbs. Others who have used raffia will know better then me. Good luck with whatever you do. Don't forget to post pictures of the work.

 

[Andy Newman]

I just grasssed a 13 foot boat with 10 lbs of raffia, and for my taste I will need another 5 lbs. As for raffia, Rogers has some tangle free 5 lbs bundles for cheaper than the bulk raffia place. Only catch is it is corn stubble (but you can dye the raffia with Rit Dye).

To give you an idea of surface area I covered it is a Blackjack with homemade spray dodger. I grassed the sides (attach grass to bungees, mess up front and on the dodger, and a roll up covering for the cockpit.) The only area I would like to add more raffia to is the dodger as I grassed it in such a way as to resemble a muskrat hut). So if you are wanting really really thick covering for that boat you are going to need more than 25 lbs. If you plan on mixing in a bunch of local vegetation then you might be ok with that amount. If you do dye your raffia I had good success this time dyeing raffia in a ice chest I sat outside and let the sun heat up in the afternoon.