When we bought our boat, there were no curtains on the front windows. There was a rubberized mesh pannel that snapped onto the outside of the front windows and side door. It was a bit of a pain to put on as you had to lift up the windshield wipers, and crawl around on the bow of the boat (in the rain if it was raining) to attach it. Also, it smelled!

The original outside mesh panels when we bought the boat (note the old name)

So, once we got the boat home to South Carolina, Brenda bought some curtains at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and altered them so that there was one panel per window. We attached them to the window frames with velcro strips. They looked good with little anchors embroidered into the fabric and served us well for the last 5 years including our year-long trip. The only issue with them is that when putting them up, you had to stretch up over the sink and the lower helm station to reach the corners. It was a stretch for me, and a struggle for Brenda. The windows are sort of bay window style and slant out at the bottom, so it’s an odd shape. The side windows are narrower on the top than on the bottom as well.

Over 5-years and nearly 8,000 miles, they were starting to show their age with some small stains and fraying so we decided to replace them.

3-panel front window curtains
Side window curtains

Looking around on Amazon, I found some flexible curtain track with rollers that we could get clips to attach the curtains. It looked like it would work to give us an easy way to open and close the curtains simply by sliding them, rather than sticking up 5 panels with velcro.

Link to Roller Track on Amazon. Link to Curtain Clips on Amazon.

I put up the track, and Brenda bought some nice linen fabric, then spent several days, measuring, ironing, hemming, test fitting, pinning, ironing, hemming,… In the end, they came out really well!

For the windows in the side doors, she made some matching pannels, and we attached those with velcro as we had before. The doors are easy to reach, and we take the curtains on them on and off frequently.

Originally we had planned that the first set would just be a trial and then we would get some expensive Sunbrella type fabric, but the first try came out really well so we are just going to stick with them for now.


 Cheers!
 Tom & Brenda