Pearson 10M Notes
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Maintenance Notes
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In August 2004 I had the boat taken by truck to my driveway. The spot where it sits is under some messy trees. I needed to cover the boat but I wanted to be able to work on it under the cover. I built a frame for the cover from 3/4" PVC tubing. I have standing headroom in the cockpit and a bit better than kneeling headroom everywhere else. This page details the building of the cover frame. The attachment of the cover frame to the boat relies on the substantial rub rail on the Pearson 10M. This same rubrail was used on about 65% of the Pearsons made between 1970 and 1991. I think the basic frame would be adaptable to any of these boats.

DHP - September, 2004


Rubrail Brackets
The frame is attached to the boat at the rub rail. The 10M has a rub rail running the length of the boat right at the gunwale. It is about 1-1/2" wide and 1-1/4" tall. I built wooden brackets that clamp to the rub rail and have a flange on top to hold the cover frame. I made the brackets in ten-foot sections and cut them down to one-foot pieces.

The rub rail is thinner (vertically) inboard. The clamp part of the brackets has a lip that squeezes down on this thinner part. This holds the bracket to the rub rail. The vertical height of the piece separating the clamp parts is about 1/16" smaller than the rubrail and was cut from a 2x4. So it all squeezes just a little. The flange to hold the cover frame is an upside down L-section that I cut from a 2x4. Basically I cut a 1x3 out of the 2x4. This worked but the cut with the 2x4 on end is 3" deep and it's pretty tricky on a basic table saw. A better method might be to glue the flange onto a 1x4.

The underside of the flange is rounded off. This is going to be in contact with the tarp and it needs to be smooth and easy to keep from chafing. I rounded this on a stationary router.

I glued and screwed the ten-foot bracket sections together except for the bottom part of the clamp. That only screws on so the brackets can be installed. Once the sections were assembled I painted them. Then I put the bottom piece of the clamp section on and cut the ten-foot sections down to one-foot pieces. Then I painted the edges.

The brackets clamp down on the rub rail well and hold the frame off the boat just a little so there is a 1" air gap. That will be useful for ventilation. I spaced the brackets every 3 feet with one extra right at the stern.

I used ten-foot lumber for the cover frame. I used eight 2x4's, eight 1x4's, some glue, a box of #6 1-5/8" drywall screws a quart of primer, and a quart of paint. Cost was in the $90 range. I ended up needing only 24 brackets but I expect it will be good to have some spares. But I could have made enough from 3 sets of eight foot sections.





PVC Frame
The framework is all 3/4" schedule 40 PVC. There are two longitudinals that run along the gunwale through the wooden brackets, 14 lateral bows, and two longitudinal stiffeners that run about 5 feet up on the bows.

The entire framework was made from ten-foot PVC sections. Longer sections were made together by inserting a one foot length of 1/2" PVC as a splice. The 1/2" PVC had a slit cut in it on a table saw. It was with a standard carbide blade, a thinner blade made the slit too narrow and the splice wouldn't fit in the pipe. The spices were glued together with PVC cement. I chamfered the ends of the splices so they would start into the 3/4 pipe more easily. This is a really important step. It takes 5 minutes to do them all. It will take 15 minutes to go find a band-aid for the gash in your knuckles after slipping while assembling these without the chamfer. Adding the chamfer is a net saving of 10 minutes.

The bows were simply bent as they were put in place. A few have tighter radius bends and those were done with a heat gun. I heated about 3" of the pipe until it was flexy then bent it. I wore thick leather gloves and pinched out the crimps as the pipe cooled.

The frame is made with 3-way and 4-way PVC connectors. I reamed these out so they would slide over the PVC on one direction. The 3-ways connect the bows to the rub rail longitudinal and the 4-ways connect the upper longitudinals to the bows. I used my dremel with a coarse sanding drum to ream out the connectors. It took about two minutes a piece. The fit over the pipe is just a little snug so they don't slide on their own.

The frame extends past the transom by about 3 feet and forms a hood over the boarding stairs. The hood will have a panel that closes it off so birds don't think it will make a good home. In that panel I'll mount a 24" box fan to pull air out of the cover through that 1" gap all along the rub rail. Hopefully that will provide good ventilation.

I used about 40 ten-foot sections of 3/4" PVC, 4 ten-foot sections of 1/2" PVC (for splices), about 36 3-way connectors, and 16 4-way connectors. The cost for those parts was about $110.






Fitting the Tarp
I got a fairly inexpensive poly tarp that measures 20x40 feet. The tarp I got is green on one side and black on the other. It's a bit brighter green than I had hoped but if the trees treat the cover as they did my deck it will be many shades darker in no time with a thick film of dirt and tree gunk. It lets very little light through. I think a more translucent cover might be better for working but this is what I have for now. Shrink warping would work well on the frame too. That comes in blue or white. The material cost is actually pretty low, in the $50 range for a cover this size. Then you need the mega propane powered heat gun to do the shrinking.





Tarp Clamps
At the gunwale the tarp wraps around the frame longitudinal. I made a set of tarp clamps from sections of thin wall 3/4 PVC. Using a pair of stacked blades on my table saw I cut a slit in the pipe that was about 7/16" wide. These sections are snapped over the rubrail longitudinal section of the cover frame sandwiching the tarp in between. When I first tried the clamps I couldn't get the clamps to snap over the pipe and tarp easily and the clamps tended to tear up the tarp. I took the clamp sections and snapped them over a section of pipe and heated them with a heat gun. This made the clamp sections expand. You can hear and feel some creaking in the pipe as the clamp section expands. The ends flare a bit and the fit becomes loose on the pipe. I sprayed it with water to cool it and the clamp section slides right off and is then easy to snap over the pipe and tarp. I plan to trim off the excess material of the tarp but it could be left tucked under the cover.




A Slight Twist
The tarp went on the boat at the start of a week long period of rain and clouds. Very little sun. That finally broke and we had a very cool night with a temp of about 50. The next day was a fabulous sunny day with temps in the 70's. Near the end of the say I came down the driveway and noticed the cover was warped to starboard. Hmmm. I thought maybe a bow had broken. But all was intact. It was all just warped to starboard. I think what happened is that the relatively dark tarp made it very warm on the sunny side of the boat (starboard). It does get very warm under the cover when the sun is on it. The PVC bows got warm and more flexible on that side and shifted. There had been sun before that warping day but not following a night with temperatures so low. I guess I should have gotten a white tarp? I tied some strings to the frame to pull it back into shape (roughly) sitting in the sun the next day. Then I inserted strips of 3/4" high density insulation between the bows and the tarp on the starboard side. This seems to keep the bows from warming to the point that they warp. I rounded the corners of the foam strips where the tarp goes over. I am sure this would all be unnecessary with a white cover or if the boat were completely out in the open.

Click here for a pre-warped photo...






Some Other Ideas
DRB INNOVATORS, LLC
Rail/stanchion mount brackets to hold PVC - Very nice and pricey but they will last decades.
DRB INNOVATORS, LLC

Kover Klamps
Conduit clamps for connecting 3/4" electrical conduit together - Reported to better than the web site...
Kover Klamps

Fairclough Sailmakers
Fairclough Sailmakers has patterns for lots of boats that they have made covers and cover frames for. These are premium canvass covers and will last many years.
Fairclough Sailmakers