Enclosures

I recently bought a Mainship 36. It has enclosures on both the Flybridge and the Sun Deck.
Question: Except for the Bimini and Hard top needed for shade, do you completely remove the enclosures during the summer months or do you just roll up the plastic windows and get some kind of screening?
Tony B

Most people I know remove all their canvas during the warm months and keep a bimini,on stand by, to cover the fly bridge during the hottest months.Some have convertibles.The top folds down and is covered by a boot.This isn't always an option due to the layout of some boats.

We keep our bimini and enclosure up year round. Especially in the summer months when you almost can't be outside without shade. We use our FB all the time, and we love our enclosure. When we lost the bimini and enclosure in Hurricane Irene we did one trip without them. It sucked, even though we were in the Bahamas in November.

When it is hot I roll up the curtains, though I wish my bimini were set up so that I could just "swing" up the curtains and secure them under the top, less wear on the strata glass than rolling.

It keeps my FB a lot cleaner, and keeps the varnish looking good longer, when I use the enclosure.

Our weather is different than other parts of the world though, so different people do different things, I guess.

On Gumbo the side panels are flexible material, I roll them up when we are cruising. The front panels are EZ2CY sheets which cannot be rolled but swing back under the bimini roof and are clipped in place.
On my previous boat I had rollable panels with "smileys" all round. In any case when cruising the side panels are usually open and the front panels closed or open according to the breeze and temp.
Steve W.
We have aft panels but only use them when out in cold weather (not too often).

Last winter at Sunset Cove in Stuart,Fla There was a boat with an enclosure and they could remove the Clear panels, and had Screen for the sides and back for later in the year. Cut down on the bugs.

Screening is good, but also you can use some sheer material and hang that up depending on the sun direction to keep the heat out of the enclosure.

Yea Jleonard on my little center console i have a T-top and just riding under it out of the sun i still get cooked. " Don't want to look like the tanning lady from NJ" when i turn 60