Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Greetings,
I have a Crestliner 22ft pontoon boat with carpet on the deck. At the bow there is a portion of the carpeted decking that extends beyond the "playpen" area and thus is not protected when the boat has the cover on and thus catches the rain. I am up in Alaska and we do get rain frequently during the summer. Because the boat sits a bit low in the stern due to the weight of the outboard so the rain on the uncovered bow tends to make its way to the stern, under the cover and throughout the "protected area". Has anyone either seen or had made a rain fly for that portion of the bow area? I am visualizing a rain fly that would be put on after the cover and be tight against the "playpen" wall and extend over the bow.

We have our pontoon boat in the water for the entire season, usually mid-May through late September.

Sorry. I can't offer any suggestions. My mooring cover extends over my front porch.

I made something similar for the stern of the boat to keep the sun from beating on the painted skins and vinyl decking on the stern that was exposed to the sun.... even though we are in a covered boat house, it still was getting the sun for much of the day.

After getting a price from a professional boat canvas company....... $800 to $900 I decided to make my own. I bought the heaviest duty, silver, UV protected tarp online that was big enough to go around the back half of the boat, stern and up the other side, all in one piece.

Here's how I make mine, and you might want to consider doing it is to make it, and snap it to your EXISTING snaps on the playpen rail. I used BACK to BACK snaps (also known as Gypsy snaps). Then your existing boat cover snaps overtop of the skirt you have made onto the Gypsy snaps. I also used "Snap Fastener Cloth, to Surface" Snaps to take the skirt under neath and have it mount to the plywood flooring overhang along the sides. At the stern where it hung over, and around the engine, I make small sandbag tubes ( inch and a half diameter X 8 or 10 inches long) and used them to hold down the back end.

I had NO sewing machine, and hand stitched in 5 different "Darts" to conform to the exact shape of the boat, including where it went over the swim ladder which folds up.

After a full winter, ALL snaps were still connected, the sandbags held down and didn't blow up onto the deck and our boat was completely clean. I takes about an extra 5 to 10 minutes to install this, BEFORE the regular boat cover goes on, but will keep our boat looking new for years to come.

TOTAL costs for the 16 ft X 20 ft tarp, special heavy sewing thread, all the snaps, gypsy snaps, and a hand tool to install = $72....... Of course my labor was FREE

I was able to buy all the hardware, and materials (except the tarp) from SAILRITE.COM Here's a link to their page with all the snaps. They also sell boat canvas materials too, but I didn't have a sewing machine and had to do with a tarp.
http://www.sailrite.com/All-Hardware/Fa ... popularity

Forgot to say.... the reason for using the tarp, was with no sewing machine, any cut edges, I burned with a hand held wood burner tool. Looks like a soldering iron, which would work too. That way, I get NO unravelled edges !!!

Hopefully, these 2 pics will attach.

Thank you so very much. You have provided some very worthwhile ideas and I'll pursue them. I had searched online for the double sided snaps and couldn't locate any, now wit a proper name (Gypsy snap) I may have more luck.

Thanks again.

eericherak wrote:Thank you so very much. You have provided some very worthwhile ideas and I'll pursue them. I had searched online for the double sided snaps and couldn't locate any, now wit a proper name (Gypsy snap) I may have more luck.

Thanks again.

Glad to help !!! I had to call and speak with a Sailrite sales person, who walked me through it, as I didn't know the name either.

If you have questions along the way, feel free to ask.....

So you're clear on how I did this, as yesterday's reply was quick and I was out the door somewhere....

I used the EXISTING snaps on the boat. They should be "male" snaps that have a screw base, screwed into the aluminum playpen railing.
The "SKIRT" I made will get the double sided, back to back, Gypsy snap. Female side of snap will attach to your existing playpen boat male snap. The snap goes through the new skirt (tarp) and will have a "male" side, facing outward. If I remember correctly, when you buy the snaps, the male side of the snap has the ferule that goes through the tarp and the female side is just a disk with a rolled edge. I put the male side through the material, the female on the other side of the fabric and then used a hand setting tool to roll the ferule edge over. Put it on a piece of wood to use as a surface to smash these together.

Your existing boat cover will then snap over top of the new skirt you have attached to the playpen railing. All rain will then run off and not get under your cover, or skirt. As I wrapped it over the edge of the deck of the boat, I used a regular female snap with a smooth cap to push it on on the bottom edge of the skirt. It mates up with a Male snap that has a wood screw base that is screwed into the underside plywood deck of your boat.

At the corners where I needed to wrap it nice and neat, I clamped it with a bunch of small spring clamps to get the marking for my sewed in dart. marked it with a magic marker, sewed it by hand, unless you have a sewing machine. Worked great.

On our boat, I had a large ski tow bar to go around, and just put a slit up from the bottom with a 2 inch diameter hole at the top to allow it to go
around the bar on each side of the boat. I did hand sew a flap about 6 inches wide to overlap the slit and sewed on heavy duty velcro strips ( 3 ) for each side. So when I install the skirt, I put all the snaps along the playpen first, then put the cover around the two tow bars and velcro the flaps over it to help keep out sun / rain and bring the bottom edge sandbags ( which are attached to the bottom edge using zip ties) over the stern edge. Lastly, I go around the perimeter snapping the underside snaps of the skirt to the bottom of the underside deck snaps. I don't have to see them, you can feel them with your hand and make the snap connection.

I'd be hell on wheels if I owned a heavy duty sewing machine ..........

I only put 1 gypsy snap in backwards !!! Not bad when you're dealing with that much fabric on the boat dock..... instantly saw my error and fixed it. Didn't drop any tools in the drink either, as I had to do this on our dock with finger piers....

And thanks again. I've already sent an email to Sailrite inquiring about their snap installation tool. You have really helped.

eericherak wrote:And thanks again. I've already sent an email to Sailrite inquiring about their snap installation tool. You have really helped.

I had great success using Sailrite's $3 hand tool and set about 60 plus snaps with no issues.... just use a hammer to smack the top of the tool. As stated earlier, I put a small piece of 2 X 4 wood underneath the tool when setting the snaps.

Again I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to my question and provide an update. I am going with the snap tool sold by Sailrite. However, I stopped by an upholstery shop yesterday to see what kind of material I could get. When I told the guy what I was looking to do he told me that my proposal wouldn't work well on the bow because of the complex curves involved and the drainage needed. He said it should really be constructed with that in mind. The difference is that he is a pro and me, well. Anyway, I asked how much it would be for the double snapped cover for the bow, he said between two to two hundred fifty dollars. So now I plan on making a temporary cover for this season and taking the boat in to be fitted for the rain fly in September. He was to busy to do it before the latter part of July and I didn't want to pull it out just to have to put it back in during the summer. Thanks again, and if I get a chance I'd like to send you a picture of the completed project.

eericherak wrote:Again I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to my question and provide an update. I am going with the snap tool sold by Sailrite. However, I stopped by an upholstery shop yesterday to see what kind of material I could get. When I told the guy what I was looking to do he told me that my proposal wouldn't work well on the bow because of the complex curves involved and the drainage needed. He said it should really be constructed with that in mind. The difference is that he is a pro and me, well. Anyway, I asked how much it would be for the double snapped cover for the bow, he said between two to two hundred fifty dollars. So now I plan on making a temporary cover for this season and taking the boat in to be fitted for the rain fly in September. He was to busy to do it before the latter part of July and I didn't want to pull it out just to have to put it back in during the summer. Thanks again, and if I get a chance I'd like to send you a picture of the completed project.

I understand, but mine was WAY more complicated as it has a swim ladder sticking up 16 inches, as well as the tow bar mounded to the deck in two locations that I had to work around, not to mention the Yamaha 200 engine in the middle...... all of that on top of COMPOUND CURVES of the boat, which would be similar to the curve on the bow of your boat..... Didn't stop me..... I did have to put in at least 5 "darts" to take out the excess material where it went around the curves, or over top of the swim ladder, etc. Just think it through.... I didn't have a sewing machine, so I had to hand sew mine. Don't listen to them, if you are thinking of trying it yourself..... go for it. Mine turned out GREAT and I've very happy with it.

If you want to see photos from all sides, let me know and I'll take some when we get back to the lake at the end of May for a few weeks.

If I had access to a sewing machine, I would have made mine out of Sunbrella, or what ever material the manufacturer used for my boat top, but I didn't, so I didn't have the ability to sew panels together to get something greater than 60 inches wide so I used a one piece silver tarp and cut it down as needed.

Don't let them discourage you........ The "Pro's" who quoted me $800 to $900 explained how complicated it was, etc......... I ended up spending a WHOLE LOT LESS.....

Of course I'd like to see additional pictures. The upholstery shop fellow is going to use sunbrella too.

Just want to add I never had enough hands to make the kind of snap tool you have to smack with a hammer work. I have much better luck with the anvils that slide on the jaws of your vice grips. I get the best results when I squeeze them tight, open the vice grips, adjust them a little tighter and squeeze again.



http://www.amazon.com/CRL-Button-Socket ... KK9KSZHGXP

sunedog wrote:Just want to add I never had enough hands to make the kind of snap tool you have to smack with a hammer work. I have much better luck with the anvils that slide on the jaws of your vice grips. I get the best results when I squeeze them tight, open the vice grips, adjust them a little tighter and squeeze again.



http://www.amazon.com/CRL-Button-Socket ... KK9KSZHGXP

Nice !!!! I like it...... would have been easier than the block of wood, hand setting anvil, and a hammer !!! LOL.......... Can't believe I was able to set 60 or 70 snaps while on a foot wide finger pier down both sides of our boat, WITHOUT dropping anything overboard