Trailering with Playpen cover

jrmybon

We trailer our boat to the keys which is a 8-10 hour drive from where we live.  Last year the buttons popped off of the playpen cover, then we lost a seat very long and bad trip.  This year I want to buy a boat cover for it that wraps around the hull of the boat.  Hurricane I don't believe makes one, and West Marie has them but not sure which one to buy.  Any advice here?  Or advice on trailering our 2013 2000 SD?  Glass closed, walkway closed as well?

TimKLL

I did a lot of reading, here & other sites, & came to the conclusion that trailering with playpen covers is bad, and that trailering without anything would be bad for losing seat cushions. We knew we would take a few multi-hour trips this season besides keeping it on a marina lot.  Obviously you've discovered that & helped validate my decision. We also have the boat outdoors on a marina lot for the season & wanted more coverage for the finish than the playpen covers give.

We bought a cover from National Boat Covers that was called "Semi-custom" only to find out that it wraps up the hull very well, has good quality construction & what looks to be & has proven to be very durable straps & shock-cord securing, but no holes for the Bimini top poles.  Pretty frustrating. We talked to a local canvas shop recommended by my dealer, but they had at least a month backlog & wanted pretty much what the cover cost to modify it. If I were to return the cover & start from scratch they were talking >$1,200 for a full, custom cover(!).  Did some more reading and followed jbodollo's example here:

 http://hurricaneboats.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/4070#Comment_4070      (I think they had it done commercially)

and talked my wife into doing some sewing. She is not a professional seamstress & was very reluctant to do this. Had a pretty old, pretty cheap, basic sewing machine - offered to get her a reasonable new one just to do this. She did it with the old one. We found a canvas remnant at Wal-mart that doesn't match exactly, but (we think) looks very complimentary.

The large flaps go over the main Bimini poles by unhooking the shock-cord and opening the velcro flap (hang on tight to both ends!).  The 3 Bimini support poles have to be lifted out of the socket & then the cover is slid over & the poles are re-socketed.

Since these photos were taken we added 2 of these (fore & aft):  http://www.shop.boatvent.com/Boat-Vent-3-White-BV3-White.htm instead of just having the poles hold the canvas up. She stitched reinforcement in around the caps too. They are great & I am positive that they help keep the heat from building up underneath.  We take the poles out when trailering - the cover pretty much hugs the boat at highway speed, with no billowing.

For the cost of the canvas remnant, fresh sewing machine oil, some UV resistant thread made for canvas, velcro, some bungie-cord hooks from Amazon (took 2 tries), and several dozen bad words from her, this is what she came up with (the first one that isn't blue trim boat/grey color cover is the example from the forum thread above.  The rest are mine):