25 Homemade Boat Cover Ideas You Can DIY Easily

Boats are expensive, so it’s worth the effort of making sure yours is properly protected when you’re not using it, but unfortunately, even the covers themselves don’t come cheap. However, there is a solution that will save you some money, and that’s to make your own.

For anyone who wants to have a go, we’ve scoured the internet to see what other people have been trying – and as a result, here’s a selection of the best DIY boat cover plans you’ll be able to copy yourself.

1. How to Make a Boat Cover – Boatsafe.com

As this post explains, providing your boat with a good-quality cover is important for protecting it, but since boats come in all shapes and sizes, it can be hard to find the right one for a reasonable price. The alternative is to make one yourself, and this blog post tells you all about how to do it, with details on the materials you’ll need as well as a step-by-step guide to completing the project. A well-written post and well worth a look.

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2. How to Make a Power Boat Cover

The written introduction to this video tutorial tells you it will teach you how to make a custom cover for your powerboat, and if that’s what you need, it’s recommended watching. At well over an hour, it’s a long video, but that means it goes into plenty of detail to help ensure your project is successful and the cover you make is a perfect fit for your boat.

 

3. Do-It-Yourself: Fashioning Canvas Covers for Your Boat – PassageMaker

Sewing is a handy skill for any seafarer to be acquainted with – for example, you never know when you might need to make running repairs to your sails while on the ocean. However, even on dry land, those skills can be put to use if you want to make your own DIY cover to keep your boat safe. It’s not such a difficult job, and with the right equipment and a bit of determination, anyone can do it – and this blog post will teach you how.

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4. Best DIY Boat Cover Support System

If you want a cover for your boat, you may also need a support system to hold it in place. That’s what this tutorial is about because in it, this YouTuber shows us how he built a frame to hold the cover for his Jon boat. The frame is made of PVC pipes, and the tarp itself cost only $20 – so as you can imagine, the whole setup was extremely inexpensive. And if you want something similar, it should be easy enough to copy his plan at home.

 

5. Making a new boat cover for my Skerry – Christinedemerchant.com

In this post, this blogger tells us about how he designed and made a new cover for his skerry. As he explains, his previous tarps only lasted around two seasons each, and this time, he wanted something a bit more durable. He gives us a clear description of what he did and also provides plenty of photos, so if you need something like this, why not have a go at making one yourself?

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6. Boat Cover DIY

This video gives you a basic method for making a cover for your boat using just a simple tarp. If you only have a small boat and don’t need elaborate solutions, sometimes it’s best not to overcomplicate things – and if that sounds like the kind of project you want to try, this is the video for you.

 

7. How to Make a Powerboat Cover – Sailrite

The homemade cover protecting the powerboat in the photo looks highly professional, and as the post promises, you’ll also find plenty of helpful tips, techniques and step-by-step instructions for making a snug version just like it for your boat. It even includes a video showing how to do it, making this a great resource for anyone interesting in making a DIY boat cover.

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8. How to Make Sunbrella Dinghy Cover to Protect PVC from Sun UV

In this video, you’ll learn how to make a cover to protect a dingy from UV damage. Dinghies are not usually made of particularly UV-resistant material, so it’s important to cover them up. Buying a cover can cost around $800, but with this plan, you can make one for much less, saving you a whole lot of cash.

 

9. How to Make a Boat Cover – DoItYourself.com

There are several benefits of making a cover for your boat rather than buying one, as this blog points out. You can save money, and importantly, one you make yourself will probably be a much better fit for your boat. It’s also not that difficult to do, and this post takes you through how to complete the job in just eight simple steps.

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10. Easy Cheap Boat Cover Support Frame DIY

Like #4, this video tutorial shows you how to build a cover frame that will help keep rainwater out of your Jon boat. It’s another simple and inexpensive design based on PVC piping, offering an easy and affordable way to protect your boat from the elements.

 

11. Homemade Boat Cover Support System – Ourrecipesforsuccess.com

This is another plan for a boat cover support, but this one is for something a little more substantial since the frame is made of metal. That means there’s a little bit of welding involved, but if that doesn’t put you off, it’s an easy enough job – so why not see if you can replicate it at home?

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12. DIY Boat Cover

Here we learn about a simple technique for fitting a tarp to a duck-hunting boat. As this YouTuber explains, just covering his boat with a tarp would result in a sag in the middle where water would collect. His solution was to rig up a DIY frame to create a ridge – and his idea worked perfectly. Check out his video and see what you think.

 

13. Make a Canvas Sailboat Cover – I Made It at TechShop: 7 Steps – Instructables

Making a DIY cover for a sailboat is among the more challenging types to attempt, but with the right plan, it’s far from impossible. This tutorial takes you through how to do it in a clear and logical order, and it also provides you with plenty of photos for reference. Plans from this site are always high quality, and this is another one that doesn’t disappoint.

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14. How to Fix a Boat Cover that gets Filled with Water

For anyone fed up with water pooling on their boat cover when it rains, this is a useful video to watch – because in it, you’ll find out about a super-simple but highly efficient solution to your problem. Sometimes the simplest ideas are best, and this video is the proof. Great job, we enjoyed this one!

 

15. DIY: Small Boat Cover Frame – Bound to Journal

This blog recounts a common problem that many boat owners probably recognize – namely, water pooling inside the boat after snow or rain due to the cover sagging. The simple solution is to build a frame that allows the water to run off over the side – and the included video teaches you how to make one.

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16. How to Build a Tarp Frame for a Boat

The YouTuber in this video seems to have quite the dry sense of humor, but he also has lots of great ideas about how to build a frame for your boat cover. So if you want to find out how to do it – and you don’t mind a joke or two along the way – this is a video you should enjoy.

 

17. DIY Canvas Repair Tips – Boating Magazine

If you already have an old boat canvas and don’t want to spend the money on buying a new one, you can DIY one – or you can DIY-repair the one you already have. The second option can save you both time and money and can also allow you to put off buying a new one for at least couple of years. Sound like something you might be interested in trying? Then give this post a read!

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18. How to Make a Trailerable Boat Cover

This is a long and detailed video from the same people who made #2, and just like that offering, it’s a high-quality tutorial. This one teaches you how to make a trailerable boat cover, and if that’s what you need, there are few better videos online for you to watch.

 

19. How to Make a Homemade Pontoon Boat Cover Support System

This is another plan that teaches you how to make a boat cover frame, this time for a pontoon boat. As the blogger explains, there’s nothing more frustrating than coming back to your boat and finding it full of water or even critters – and this plan will show you how to prevent that from happening.

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20. Cheap and Easy Boat Cover Frame – How to DIY

The cover frame this video teaches you how to make is intended for bass boats, but as we are told, it would be easy to modify the design to fit other types of boat too. It’s an easy and cheap method that anyone can copy, and it works perfectly too – so what are you waiting for?

 

21. DIY Tarpaulin for Your Yacht: A Low-Cost Alternative?

When it comes to storing your yacht through the winter, there are lots of factors to consider, but in almost all cases, you’ll need a reliable tarp to protect it. This blog post talks in detail about the best options for boat storage available to you and tells you how and why this blogger decided to make a DIY version – so if you’re facing similar decisions, it’s well worth checking out.

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22. Make Your Own Winter Boat Cover

Here’s one more video from the same people who made the videos in #2 and #18 – and just like those tutorials, this one is long and full of invaluable information. This upload is about making a winter boat cover, and if that’s what you’re interested in, you’d do well to watch this video all the way through.

 

23. Secret Tarp Hacks

This video is another one from the YouTuber who gave us #16, and in this video, he shares all the tips and tricks about tarping boats that he’s accumulated through years of experience. That means it doesn’t give you a specific plan to follow, but it does give you plenty of useful info – which makes it worth a look before you start planning how to make a DIY tarp or boat cover of your own.

 

24. Our DIY boat cover – Adventures on the Club

When it comes to looking at solutions for covering your boat for the colder part of the year, there are lots of possibilities to consider, but some of them can be extremely expensive. However, the answer these boat owners came up with set them back only around $200, which is a considerable saving compared to the $475+ per year for shrink wrap – so their idea is one option that many people would do well to consider.

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25. DIY Retractable Boat Cover!

The retractable cover this YouTuber made for his dive boat cost only around $125, making it an effective yet affordable solution to the problem of protecting his vessel. As he explains, without the cover, his boat was constantly being filled with pollen, pine needles and a whole lot more, but by utilizing the trees around where he stored the boat, he was able to rig up a DIY solution. It works perfectly too, so check it out if you think you might want to copy some of his ideas.

 

Plenty of great options for DIY boat covers

As you can see, whichever type of vessel you own, there are plenty of great plans for making a DIY boat cover that will help keep your boat protected and safe while also saving you a bit of money.

We’ve enjoyed collecting these plans for you, so we hope you’ve enjoyed watching and reading them too. And above all, we hope we’ve helped you find the ideas you needed to get started on a DIY boat cover of your own.