A more waterproofer cruiser deck

It took a lot of PBR’s and I ruined a halfway decent t-shirt practicing, but I taught myself how to sew tonight and added an extra 2 inches of heavy duty velcro along all the closures on my cruiser deck because with the addition of thigh straps it has been a real hassle getting the thing to close and stay closed with my knees pressing up underneath. After a class III+ living room dry-run, I’m pretty pleased with the addition.

I use a backrest very similar to what kirkinbend has posted (https://www.dropbox.com/sc/bwcu04ylirpby4g/U2J27ocmas) and I have an issue with the spray deck sagging behind me and pooling water that inevitably washes into the boat. So after looking around the interwebs for a solution, I came across Roman Dial’s pocketed platypus modification and thot that I could add two pockets behind me to keep the deck tight and upright around my back.

Just wondering before I go threddin’ my bobbin if anyone else has tried this and been happy or not with the outcome.

Well, just to follow up–I sewed a couple pockets of ripstop nylon on the inside of the the cruiser deck so I can inflate and put in the 2L platypus bottles. Turned out far better than I could have hoped. Taking on barely any water at all now.

tomahawk,

any pics? and where’d ya get the heavy duty velcro?

i’ve been thinking about modifying my cruiser deck as well and have been bangin around a few ideas. as with most anybody else with a cruiser deck, most of the water gets in through the left and right corners at the bow, where there’s no continuous zipper coming from the starboard side. i don’t have many problems with water getting in through the cinch cord area at the stern at the far rear or even on the starboard side , but do have issues with the quick release velcro coming undone on the port side thing is that i like the cruiser deck, more versatile in my opinion simply because you can take it off if need be. ideally, i’d like to replace the zipper altogether with something a bit heavier duty. and add two pieces of curved fabric at those corners i mentioned so that the zipper can be a continuous one that starts at the existing spot and ends up near my left hip near exit strap handle. and i’d keep the velcro closure along the port side to act as a flap over the extended zipper. make sense?

has anybody out there done anything similar to what i’m talking about?

and does anybody know if alpacka sells that same material that the skirt is made of? asked em a while back, but no reply. or perhaps somebody knows where the same or at least a similar material can be purchased?

any and/or all suggestions/advice/etc. would be greatly appreciated!

thanks,
chris