measuring and cutting the material for the boat bow and rear covers

[dlogvine]

Another one of my boat covers fall apart as a victim of the sun, rain and wind. And this was a more expensive one. So I decided to make a bow and a rear enclosure snap on covers. I have a roll of sunbrella material, and a good walking foot sewing machine. I measured the boat sizes for the cover and sewed up several pieces of the material to exceed the measured sizes. The problem I faced is cutting the material close enough to the actual size of the boat + about an inch or two for hem. Anybody had the experience of making the boat covers or can point some good videos of the step by step process. Thank you.

 

[JoLin]

When I reupholstered the cockpit of my 27 Four Winns, I completely disassembled the old upholstery and used each piece of it as the pattern for the new. If memory serrves, I cut each piece 1/4-1/2" larger in all dimensions to allow for my inexperience, and carefully pinned each piece to the next before sewing. I got a lot of compliments on the finished job.

My .02

 

[Scott Danforth]

from a conversation with my upholstery guy yesterday.....template the boat in addition to checking the old material. the old material may have stretched/shrunk in a direction or two.

 

[dlogvine]

I dont have the old cover. The cover that i had was a regular boat cover for 22ft boat that i adjusted for the wakeboard tower. The new cover that i want to make is going to be a 2 piece snap on cover, one piece for the bow, second for the cockpit. So i dont have templates or originals to work from. That was the main question, how to make the proper cuts. I saw in one youtube video a seamstress used a two sided sticky tape to tape the material to the boat at the right places and then marked the appropriate cut off lines...

 

[72fj40]

I watched a couple Sailrite videos on making boat covers. Locally, most boat upholsterers don't want the old material for patterns. They like doing it their way. I just re-did our boat interior. At 1st I used the old vinyl as a pattern, in the end, I liked making my own patterns. I think they came out better than using the old vinyl as a pattern.

 

[Lowlysubaruguy]

For sure watch the sailright videos. Next 2 and 3 inch wide masking tape and chalk that you can see on your fabric. If your span is large and your working alone make a rope support from side to side and front to back this will help keep your material from dropping to much. Long ratchet straps might be good here.

Do a sketch or two of where your seams have to be you want the folds to run down unless its for trailering then in the direction of the least wind resistance. If your boat has sharp edges put a few layers of tape on them to reduce the chance youll damage the material because your going to have it on and off a number of times.

Start your longest run first tape it to the boat all over the place the sticky tape they used in the video aint gonna hold sunbrella in place so start working the masking tape. Dont cut a thing until you have it positioned right mock up folds and pletes and figure out best use of material. Next you have UV protected thread right. A hot knife and enough buckles and strap material to do the job. Sunbrella will have threads comming off if you cut it with scissors. However the hot knife leaves a hard melted plastic edge so you have to fold all seams or it will marr your boat. i liked the way it cut with a hot knife for sure. They make hooked strap buckles for places that you cant wrap your straps around.

Make them fit right add three to 6 inches everywhere before cutting. The bottom edge will be folded and folded and folded if you leave a run channel for a rope or strap all the way around the boat you can figure an extra 6 inches to a foot on that alone the bottom seam on my boat cover seen below folds up into the canvas three times making the seam load in three different places for strength. Theres a foot of material in that area I added that piece in but the primary part of the cover has to fold up 4 inches and its folded at the top making that area 5 to 6 inches if that makes sense.

I made my cover short its big 27 yards I did not want two more feet of overhang to deal with if you can grasp that, a smaller boat might gain some protection from more overhang.

Every seam is folded and then reinforced so make every cut with an allowance for the first fold then the fold over that, which is also sewn in on top as a reinforcement. More dont cut to short. After you get your first piece taped up tight youll see how to make the other pieces work together. Some things you need space and lots of it a clean floor and boat so dirt wont get on your cover and the tape will stick to it. If you have wierd corners leave extra material and reinforce the devil out of them I have access to car seat belt material it runs the area at the top of my cover and at the transom. I trippled the material at all areas of edges etc and at the bow and transome This took three of us an entire weekend, My wife fired herself mid afternoon on Sunday but we were down to simpler things by then. I will state I felt accomplished when it was done. its a fit I doubt I could have paid someone to achieve so there are reasons to tackle a job like this.

 

[dlogvine]

Thank you buddy, plenty of helpful hints. I will start working on the cover in a couple days, got my shoulder injured in a soccer game. Will share the pictures and most likely more questions