I have a 2021 Caracal dual console. When I ordered the boat I also ordered the Aurora strap cover, but until this past weekend have never put it on. Reason for that is I fish local mostly, so it was never needed as my boat is garage kept. While on a fishing trip out of state I wanted to trailer my boat home using the cover as there was supposed to be a heavy frost and I did not want to put a frost covered cover into the back of my truck for it to thaw and get water everywhere.
I ain’t no newbe when it comes to boats as I have owned just about all of them. This is my first cover of this type, and there was NO WAY that I could have the cover on and trailer it over 300 miles as it would have done a lot of cosmetic damage to the sides of the boat. The front 1/3 of the boat was fine…tight fit and snug so there could be no rubbing. The middle 1/3 just does not fit the boat. There is so much slop around the windshields, the console areas, and where it goes over the top cap. Had I trailer’ed with the cover it would have rubbed the finish in these areas BAD. Where the cover went over the back deck was just as bad as there was probably 8″ of loose cover where they go over the driver/passenger seats.
I tried putting a large empty cooler just behind the seats and that took most of the slop out of that area but the it did not do anything for the console areas. With the cover as tight as I could get it I could pull down the cover probably 10″ on each side because that is how much extra material is there. The cover is as far as it can be pulled down in the back as because of how it sits in the front there is not much I can do to get the rear to go any further down. I am 6″ below the rear step ladder and when I tightened up the cover there you could not even get a finger under it for the first 1/3. The second 1/3 you could get your whole hand in there easy as there is a 2″ gap between the hull and the cover. And the back 1/3 was very tight as you got by the transom area.
The cover also is not uniform from going front to the back…meaning if you looked at the cover from the side view it would be a few inches down from the rub rail in the front, just making it below the rub rail around the console area, and a few inches below as you got near the transom. So it looks like an arc sort of. Being able to pull down the cover for as much as I could around the console is no bueno.
Do I contact Aurora? Do I try putting about 5 folded towels on top of each console to try to take all of the slack material out? Thought about the towels but then I didn’t want to damage the windshields. Any suggestions?
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