New cushions brighten up the salon
We selected Maritime Network Panama to create new salon cushions for us. We had been carrying 20 yards of Sensuade material since 2017 but didn’t either find the right trades or timing to update our salon cushions.
Due to the complex curved foam cuts on the backs, chose to keep the original back cushion foam, replacing the bottom foam with new foam. Unfortunately, it turned out that Panamanian sourced foam just wasn’t going to work for my delicate rear and our combined weight. So we sourced it from The Foam Factory and Jose Fernandez’s crew recut the new foam for us and wrapped it with Sailrite Silkfilm since again, the Panamanian plastic was very basic and was noisy and non-breathable.
Jose’s team managed to recut the foam in a few days, and deliver the cushions in time for a comfortable Panama Canal crossing!
Split cushion
We decided to split the very long bottom cushion since it was cumbersome to remove every time we wanted something underneath. We can still leave the long back cushion on, and it turned out quite convenient.
New bimini has improved window to see the sails
We selected canvasdavid@hotmail.com to create a new bimini for us, as the tropics and 10 years of weather did their damage on the original Lagoon bimini. We matched the Sunbrella marine grade Heather Beige material needing the 60″, versus 42″, width for the bimini.
David improved the design by making the vinyl window larger and having a sunshade cover on top, in addition to below, to protect it from sun damage. We added Beige Shelter-Rite reinforcement material on all areas that rub against the stainless.
Helm seat and redesigned backrest
With a disintegrated helm seat as well, we worked with David to create an upgraded design fit for a king.David custom built an amazingly comfortable back rest, which is a grand improvement over the original Lagoon sausage. We sourced dry fast open cell anti-microbial foam from Sailrite, because the local foam choices were very limited. We went with 4″ of foam and glued it on top of the original 1″ closed cell hard foam. Now, I can stand with my back to Don and comfortable chat with him as I monitor the trolling set up as we fish while we travel!
Unfortunately, the “marine plywood” from Colon, Panama came with its own termite infestation, but it was caught in time and remediated properly. We got rid of the infested wood, and made sure to fully soak the wood in marine quality epoxy to trap any eggs inside.