Although we have the boat in our possession for several years we have been looking around for a suitable window shade.
Since this is interior decoration, I'm as a boat repairman less suitable to pick the right type, according to my wife.
We have discussing several options of which one is normal curtains but they will hang loose at the bottom especially at the front windows.
There are tricks of course to mount them in the bottom but we did not see this as the solution we were looking for.
First option was to install plastic window shades the type of small strips hanging from the top on ropes but those are rather wide and only can be used from bottom up.
We ended up with with Blackout Cellular shades, also called in Europe Plisse curtains.
Reason for the black out type is to prevent as much as possible daylight into the cabins to prevent discoloring of the wood as well as to keep the temperature as low as feasible , especially during the summer season. Additional benefit it is rather dark now in the boat in the aft and Main cabin.
As can be seen from the above picture the inside is a kind of aluminium foil, while the outside facing is white and the inside facing is a brown color.
To be able to use the sliding windows the shades were placed in such a way the ones in front of the other fixed windows were mounted against the window frame while the one in front of the sliding window was mounted on the ceiling support and cabin support.
Not only by installing the shades as mentioned above has the advantage that the sliding windows can be operated but also there is some overlap between the different shades which reduces the light coming into the cabins as well.
The shades are installed, ordered , that they can be used both ways so called top down and bottom up.
We are under the impression that this will give us more flexibility with regards to sun and light into the cabin and still have the privacy one sometimes prefers.
As can be seen from above picture top part of the shade is moved downwards .
As can be seen from above picture the bottom of the shade is move upwards.
The shades can of course be moved upwards and they are positioned in such a way that the full window is clear from the shades.
The outside of the shades are white which of course helps in reducing the temperature inside of the boat.
The front window of the main cabin became a challenge since the window is not only curved but is also not the same size comparing middle part and the outside part .
This is of course a result of the curved deck. The idea was to place one or two shades next to each other but making some samples from straight wood it showed that we would lose to much space inside and that the shades would not follow the window as nice as one would prefer.
The above resulted that it was decided to place 3 shades next to each other per window, so in total 6 shades next to each other.
As can be seen these shades are not overlapping but mounted against each other, this give a slight challenge with opening them but if one follows a routine from opening them from inside to outside they will not get damaged.
Kitchen area same principle was used for overlapping both shades .
For the aft cabin the same principle was used as for the main cabin sliding window overlapping the fixed window shade.
The corner window shades , 4 in total in the boat 2 forward and two in the aft cabin can only be top down since this is the only possible way to open them , this is since they are made to follow the window and cabin window frame , but since these are fixed windows I do not see this as an issue.
The shades for the aft cabin were more simpler than the ones fro the main cabin this since the windows are straight windows with only a slight curve in them.
We were able to place two shades next to each other per window.
From the outside this looks natural as well.
Although this is not the cheapest solution we are satisfied with the result , it takes some time to measure how to install the shades and some digging on the internet how they need to be measured and installed but in the end they were delivered ready to install no adjustments required and with good installation instructions.
