Association Forum - Halloween Pirate Ship Conversion

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Halloween Pirate Ship Conversion

New Topic

Reply to Topic

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

crystal_blue
1st Mate

Member Avatar

USA
84 Posts

Initially Posted - 10/31/2026 : 19:31:18

Mariah is on the hard for the winter on a neighbor's parking pad across the street from our house in Utah Valley. Our neighborhood tends to get pretty excited over Halloween; so this year we figured we'd turn Mariah into a pirate ship.

Day view:

For the square-rigged sails we used:
--3 10' lengths of PVC pipe
--4 twin bedsheets
--100' paracord
--About 3-4 more feet of spare paracord
--8 large spring clamps

Basic steps are:

1) Each pipe has a hole drilled all the way through about 2" from each end.

2) The paracord is looped in the dead-middle. Temporarily tape the loop at the halfway mark on the pipe that is going to be your top yard.

3) Run *one side* of the line through the holes you drilled on one end of a yard and then knot it at the bottom (to keep the yard from sliding further down the paracord). Then continue to pass the line through the ends of the other two yards. I spaced my yards about 9-10' from each other. (It's easier if you have some open grass you can lay everything out on while you're putting it together).

4) After running one side of the paracord through one set of yards, but *before* doing the other side, take your bedsheets. Unpick the sides of the top hem (but not the hem itself), so that the hem is open at the sides. Then each yard through two bedsheets.

5) Repeat step 3) running the other end of the paracord through the opposite end of the yards.

6) Assuming your mast is already up and you have a spare jib halyard: Attach the halyard shackle to the loop you made above the first yard in step 2). Then remove the tape and raise the assembly using your jib halyard. The highest yard, because of the pressures the assembly puts on it, will want to sag--use your extra paracord to tie a loop between the center of the yard and the jib halyard shackle to support the middle of that yard. As each yard gets to a comfortable height, pause work. Use a spring clamp on each end of the upper two yards to keep the bedsheet in place. Use another spring clamp to hold the two bedsheets together right below the yard, and a fourth spring clamp to hold the two bedsheets together at the very bottom end of the bedsheets.

7) Continue to raise the assembly until the height looks good, and cleat off the halyard.

8) You should have about 20' of extra paracord dangling below each end of the bottom yard. Run each back to the stern cleat on its own side of the boat. Balance the tension on these lines so that each line holds the bottom yard more-or-less square to the mast.

As can be seen in the picture, we made a point of *not* securing the bottom edges of each bedsheet/"sail"--they are free to flap freely in the breeze.

Crow's Nest:

For this I used:
--A 3/8" project panel I had sitting around my garage; probably about 2' by 4'
--Some netting my wife found on Amazon--I think it was probably two nets, about 20' by 3'.
--8 1' long, 3/4" bolts; with 16 washers, 6 hex nuts, and 2 wing nuts.

1) The two after corners are cut off the project panel. A notch is also cut, large enough to accommodate the mast.

2) Drill holes on each of the octagonal corners; plus a third hole between the two on each side. Run bolts through each hole with the head side down, so that the excess protrudes out the top. Secure one net to the bolts on each octagonal side, using the washers and then the hex nuts on top of them to hold them in place.

3) From one of the sawed-off corners, I made a strip of wood that was probably about 8" long.

4) When the mast is ready to raise--position the crow's nest (and any decorations you might want on it--we used a skeleton) so that it will rest right atop the spreaders. With the mast being horizontal pre-raising, the crow's nest won't want to stay in place. But assuming your mast-notch is deep enough, you should be able to use bolts and wing nuts to secure your strip of wood on the forward end of the notch, holding the crow's nest firm to the mast.

5) After you've raised your mast, secure the netting on each side to whatever stanchion/lifeline seems handy and looks good.

You can see from this that our crow's nest wound up getting twisted; it wasn't perfectly aligned fore-and-aft and there was no way to fix it once the mast was up. Ah, well. It's a pirate ship; so keeping things perfectly Bristol-fashion is optional, right?

Twlight View:

Night View:

Additional touches included:
--A 2x4 bowsprit with a skeleton mounted as a figurehead (I think if I could do it over again, I'd skip the bowsprit and just mount the skeleton to the bow pulpit)
--A power bank inside the cabin powering two flame-bulbs, creating a ghostly flickering effect from inside the hull
--An Amazon pirate flag flown off the backstay
--Piratey songs played on a loop off a bluetooth speaker--loud enough to be noticeable, not so loud as to be obnoxious) We used these tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meb_4cEriyw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBBKfw59kA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx1wygekt3E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvJtT7hWRvc
--My 16-year-old daughter handing out candy.

Overall it was pretty well received. I'm thinking we'll probably do it again next year, but am open to refinements and additional ideas.

Has anyone else converted their boats into a pirate ship? What did you do?

Jim and Crystal Smith
Lehi, Utah
1996 Catalina 250 WB #191 "Mariah"

Edited by - crystal_blue on 10/31/2026 19:37:58

Topic

New Topic

Reply to Topic

Printer Friendly

Jump To:

Association Forum

Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.