Sailboat Weathervane – Hinckley Sloop

The woman who first commissioned this Hinckley Sloop Weathervane was creating the perfect gift for her mate. A lover of sailing, he had purchased an old Hinckley in California, towed it to the East Coast and spent 15 years on the restoration. Sailing in this beauty is a great joy for the family.

West Coast Weather Vanes specializes in custom copper weather vanes and many of our sailboat designs represent actual sailboats. Customers often want the sailboat sculpture we make for them to reflect their boat. You can see a number of examples here on our website where we have done precisely that. The customer sends us a set of photos that include the hull, and we work from there. Included is the name of the boat in gold leaf.

Sails can also be customized to look like those on the real sailboat. There are several factors that affect the price of our boat weathervanes. If you are able to provide us with schematic drawings of your boat, we can often reduce our standard custom design fee accordingly. Some of our customers have even lent us models of their boat to help us make their weathervane as realistic as possible.

Because our pricing is based on how long it takes us to make them, another consideration is how detailed we make your vane. Some of our sailboats have cockpits, steering wheels, detailed sheets, etc. Some don’t. Normally, you look up at a weathervane so details like the cockpit and steering wheel may not be visible from this angle. If we eliminate these features or reduce them in complexity, we can reduce the cost accordingly.

One thing to remember, however, is that handmade copper weathervanes can last a very long time, even a century or more, and your vane may not spend its entire life in its original location up on the roof or on a cupola. Someone in the future may want to take the weathervane down off the roof and display it indoors as a piece of American Folk Art. If this is the case, details like the cockpit and steering wheel would be visible and add value as a collectible. This is one important consideration in favor of adding these types of details. Either way, since each vane is made to individual order, we will add or eliminate details based to your preference.

Custom sailboat weather vanes make wonderful gifts. Probably more than half the sailboat weathervanes we’ve made were given as gifts, either for a birthday or other special occasion or by a grateful crew to their skipper.