Kenyafrog said..
Also remember that a lot of boats in Msnly QLD sustained Bimini damage in the Oct 2025 hail event. The marine trimmers are pretty much still flat out on insurance jobs. We refused to believe that replacing the centre clear (zip section) of our dodger (it’s maybe 1 m by 70 cm) was $2200 in work (noting insurance excess of $2000). We haven’t been able to get anyone to quote for a non- insurance job, let alone at a sensible price. Suggestions welcome. We had a 10 cm (yes really that big) hailstone/cannonball through our dodger. Currently held together with Flexitape, which is doing a brilliant job the the aesthetics displease the skipper. Have been thinking about taking the dodger off and driving it to someone on the Gold Coast as they weren’t as badly hit.
Buy a sewing machine and do it yourself, it's not that difficult. A sewing machine is a good tool to keep if you own a boat.
Aside from many repairs we have made bimini's from scratch and recovered all the upholstery. A sewing machine is a very useful bit of kit. My old genoa was cooked, 18years old and not worth repairing proffesionally, it had a 4mtr rip down the seam of the uv strip. I spent $20 on a strip of dacron and some sticky back and sewed a patch into it. Its still going and I have used as a backup sail quite a few times.
