How to Make a Tent Cover for Your Boat
A tent cover will protect the inside and outside of your boat from weather and wear. The cover should have a slanted surface so that precipitation and falling objects will slide off. Making a tent cover requires a little bit math, some sharp scissors a bit of chalk and some wood or metal for the tent poles, which are held in place by the cover itself.
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Things You'll Need
- Boat cover material
- Doweling for tent cover poles
- Grommet or fastener kit
- Calculator
- Measuring tape
- Scissors
- Sewing materials
- Carpenter's chalk line
- Chalk stick
Instructions
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Measure your boat's cockpit. The "tent" configuration of the boat cover means that the cover will have to be larger than the size of the cockpit. To calculate how much larger, we have to know the height of the tent poles.
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2
Plan to use one tent pole for every two feet of cockpit length. Calculate the height of each pole by multiplying 0.5773 by the width of the boat. The resulting poles will give your boat cover about a 30 degree slant, sufficient to keep water from standing on the cover. This same factor, rounded up to 0.6 for convenience, will be used to calculate how much wider and longer than the cockpit you cut the material to make the cover.
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3
Multiply the length and width of the cockpit by 1.6. This calculation is just like adding tax to a purchase; you add the percentage to the price in decimal form. Here, you're adding the extra material required to make up for the difference in height that the tent pole brings to the cover: 1 + 0.6 = 1.6.
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If your cockpit is 8 feet long and 4 feet wide, the length of the cover will be 8 x 1.6 = 12.8 feet. The width of the cover will be 4 x 1.6 = 6.4 feet. Additionally, add 4 more inches to both length and width to put a seam on the edge of the cover. Lay out the cover material and transfer the total length and width to the material with a piece of chalk. Use a carpenter's chalk line to snap the lines in so they will be straight between the corners. Cut the material using long-bladed scissors.
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Turn 2 inches of material under for a 2-inch seam and sew the seam in place. Use the grommet kit to install grommets in the seamed area if you plan to anchor your cover with bungee cords or rope. If you plan to use another kind of fastener, follow the installation instructions that come with the fastener kit.
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Tips & Warnings
Seam tape will not hold up to the stresses placed on the cover. The seams should be sewn, either by hand or on a heavy-duty sewing machine.
