spray cover without snaps or velcro

[Gamma1214]

...the very first thing they should do after installing it is practice capsizing and exiting in a controlled environment.

Completely agree. If you can't roll (or get away from your boat) in a pool or pond, you have zero chance of doing it in moving water. It's also something that should be practiced. I could do it easily in my teens but have no confidence that I could do it today.

(yet another reason I portage anything gnarly)

 

[Steve in Idaho]

3M makes all sorts of double back adhesives…look at the trim pieces on any modern car, all held on by a 3M adhesive, those parts get wet all the time, suffer wild temperature swings, etc
Seems to me those snaps just need a different adhesive

And those parts have a habit of coming loose after less than a couple years. At least, that's what I see in my area.

What is this reluctance to poke holes in hulls and then plug them?

 

[Pseudonym]

What is this reluctance to poke holes in hulls and then plug them?

I can understand the compunction. For some, it might be as simple as resale value, but I think there's a corollary amongst automotive enthusiasts: some are willing to modify body panels on a classic car for customization, whereas others think it's sacrilege to "chop" a classic. I fall in the middle. I've drilled boats but would also be glad to find a more elegant solution, as long as I'm not compromising utility/durability.

Towards this end, I've been noodling on an idea for a spacered-outwale that would allow retainer clips to be sewn into the outer edge of the spray cover. The retainer clips would slot into the bottom of the outwale spacers from below, so that the spray cover wraps the outwale completely, but otherwise doesn't need to attach to the hull at all.

Please forgive the crude nature of this hasty sketch. It shows a spacered-outwale in cross section and then a second cross section detailing how the clip and spray cover might engage the outwale:


An alternative version might be a retainer clip that is continuously engaged into a rabbet in the bottom of the outwale, akin to the retainer flange at the bottom edge of a Jeep Wrangler soft top. That version might eliminate any sag in the spray cover fabric between the outwale clips.



The "rabbet" on the body of a jeep, looks like this:


I could imagine that rabbet becoming a standard feature of production gunwales. One obvious downside is that during storage any overturned boat would be likely to accumulate crud in the rabbet.