How to Secure a Boat Cover With Sandbags

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When we were making a winter boat cover for our Project Boat, we had to decide on a method of securing the cover. Our set-up allows for either weights or belly straps. We opted to use sandbag weights secured with E-Z Lace Supreme.
Materials List:
  • Marine Canvas Fabric
  • Dura-Skrim® Patterning Material 74" – #103134
  • E-Z Lace Supreme Black – #103696
  • Seamstick 3/8" Basting Tape for Canvas – #129
  • Leech Line Dacron® 1/8" – White #21209 or Black #212114
Tools List:
  • Sailrite® Edge Hotknife Package – #103800
  • Sailrite® Clear Acrylic Ruler 6" x 24" – #102400
  • Soapstone Fabric Marking Pencil White – #102766
  • Sailrite® Ultrafeed® LSZ Walking Foot Sewing Machine – #311602

Attach a boat cover using sandbags

How to Secure a Boat Cover With Sandbags Video 2
Learn how to securely attach a boat cover using sandbags in our step-by-step tutorial.

E-Z Lace Supreme is a thin fabric strip with reinforced holes that can take the place of grommets. As an attachment point for the sandbag weights, we installed E-Z Lace Supreme around the perimeter of the cover. We like this method because it allows flexibility when placing the sandbags, and it distributes the weight of the sandbags evenly across the cover.

We designed our sandbags to be highly functional and nice-looking! Lace sleek fabric tubes to the E-Z Lace Supreme on the edge of the cover and hide your sandbags inside to create a uniform look. This method allows you to keep the fabric tubes in place year-round and just reinsert the sandbags when winter rolls around.

The fabric tubes and sandbags are easy to make for this attachment method. Plus, you can add them to your new boat cover or attach them as an upgrade to an existing cover (depending on the current hardware). The outer fabric tube is made from Sunbrella® Marine Grade Fabric, and the inner sandbags are made from Dura-Skrim® Patterning Material.

Check out this short video excerpt from the "Make Your Own Winter Boat Cover" DVD to see how we use E-Z Lace Supreme to attach our sandbags.

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