As soon as I decided to buy a BC23, I began thinking about whether a cockpit tent would work for me. I have seen the various earlier comments on the forum about tents and covers for different Swallow yachts without any clear conclusions as to their effectiveness.
Initially the only option seemed to be ordering a bespoke tent to be made up which would cost north of £1,500 and involve a number of fixings to be drilled into my brand new shiny cockpit surround to hold the frame and the tent. But then, what if I didn’t like it?
An alternative presented itself when I visited the Habitent stand at Southampton last year, much cheaper (£485), it looked good, but they couldn’t tell me if it would fit a BC23. Almost all of the examples on their website (
www.habitent.co.uk) were of larger yachts with guard rails (or stanchions) to provide the rear tensioning strength to hold up the rear frame section.
Fast forward a few months, and Christine and Brian from Habitent kindly agreed to travel to North Shields a few weeks ago to see if their “Mistral-NS” unit could be installed. The day of the trial installation was a blustery, wind was gusting upwards of 20knts right over the stern, so this was certainly going to be a test!!
Our main concern was how to secure the rear stand up frame. The solution was to attach a webbing strap tightly across the stern (over the solar panels) through the rear fairleads from the rear cleats on either side. As I also have a flagpole socket in the centre of the sern, this also helped to provide a firm strong point which kept the horizontal strap in position as the two vertical straps from either end of the frame were attached. It worked extremely well.
As the rear “door” would not be used to gain access/exit, we could have added two further vertical straps, but even in the strong wind it wasn’t really necessary.
The fixings at the front of the tent were easier, a shorter strap tightly across the cabin roof (similar to the way the rear had been attached) and the front clear panel/window straps attached to this. The front side straps were then attached to the shroud bases and pulled tight.
As a final flourish, we attached the spinnaker halyard to the front frame to raise it slightly above the sprayhood giving it a neat finish inside and out.
For me, the upsides:
• Once you have worked out how it will fit once, it will be easy the second time;
• Its incredible cosy (and warm) on the inside;
• Versatile, I loved that you could have any of the four panels (sides, front and back) as clear panels, or closed off or fully open or even with a just a mosquito net;
• The material looked and felt strong, good quality zips and straps;
• Good security mainly because it keeps the engine out of sight;
• Provision inside for some battery run LED lights;
• Good value for money.
And the downsides:
• Its huge!!! It came out of a very small bag and would never go back in no matter how patient you were. They recommended using a mainsail bag or holdall to stow the tent.
• They do not recommend leaving the tent erected for more than 24-36 hours. This is because they fear that wind movement could/would loosen the webbing straps which would cause the whole tent to fail.
• When erecting the tent on a windy day, it could catch the wind, and you would be off!
So will I buy?…..not sure (yet). Not being able to leave the tent is a big issue for me, maybe when I start to trail the boat and stay on board for longer spells.
Happy to answer any questions or supply photos.
David Hall
Lady G #51
