Installing Vinyl Fabric As a Boat Headliner

If you have a boat cabin that's seen better days, you might be looking to replace the headliner fabric. Or, did you just buy a used boat and it needs an entire interior overhaul? You've come to the right place. Sailrite^® carries all the fabric, tools and supplies for a full boat makeover — inside and out! Whether you need to install new headliner or hull liner material, sew new interior or exterior cushions, or sew a new dodger or bimini, we have everything you need to get started on your boat DIY journey. In today's video, we'll be showing you how to install vinyl fabric as the headliner material for your boat cabin walls.

We chose to use Naugahyde^® Nauga Soft for our headliner material. Nauga Soft is a supple vinyl upholstery fabric with a look and feel like real leather. It's extremely durable with superior tear strength and abrasion resistance. It's a great choice for a headliner material as it's also very easy to clean and maintain. Nauga Soft is known for its Advanced BeautyGard^® protective top coat finish, which provides outstanding protection against bacterial and fungal microorganisms. It comes in a wide variety of colors so you're sure to find a Nauga Soft color that complements your boat interior for a cohesive look throughout your cabin.

There are very few materials that are needed for this project. Besides the vinyl fabric, you'll need 3M™ General Trim Adhesive to glue the fabric to the walls of the boat. You'll also need adhesive remover to remove any excess adhesive overspray. We had to remove some of the boat's original plywood and attach new marine grade plywood. That is an added step in the video that you might not need to do depending on the condition of your boat.

In our how-to video, Sailrite founder Jim Grant will demonstrate how to install Nauga Soft as a headliner inside the cabin of our Islander 37 sailboat. We're doing a full makeover on our Islander 37, so be sure to watch the other videos that are part of this DIY series. We hope you find this video tutorial instructive and helpful. Thanks for watching!