Jib Cover

My wonderful, put-up-with-all-my-crap, wife sewed a jib cover that I cut out from some leftover Sunbrella Material.

I put some webbing tabs at the top for the spinnaker halyard to pull up on.

It is only about 10-12 inches in circumference because I had read some others' notes about the wind causing them to flop if they were too baggy.

It needs just a little help over the clew area (fattest part), but other than that it raises quite smoothly.

It is almost exactly 15ft long.

I used a continuous zipper I got on ebay, but I am having a lot of trouble with the starting end.

The slider can be made to go on and start things off, but it is a lot of trouble.

After educating myself a bit with goole and wikipedia, I found the terms for what I need to finish the starting end of the zipper off.

It is called a "pin and box". It is the same thing that is on the bottom end of a jacket zipper. The "box" is what locks the two zipper parts together so they do not re-separate after the slider runs the length.

I also found out that there is NO WHERE to buy "pin and box" parts. Apparently they are kind of kept secret so that the zipper manufacturers can stay in control of making specific sizes and lengths of zippers.

As you can see, I tried to fashion some "pins" of my own by whipping the ends of the zipper webbing. This helps some, but it is a real chore to get the zipper started.

I will try to find a #10 zipper and remove the pin and box from it, and hopefully transfer it to my zipper.

If anyone knows a better way, please let me know!!

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