Thread: Hydro Turf Substitute?

That stuff looks great. I have been looking at some sort of foam to use on the deck of my project boat. I considered stable mats but they are expensive and I would have to piece it together as they are only 48" wide. At 60" the Volara foam is wide enough to fit without piecing. And I like that it comes in white as the black stable mats would turn the boat into a reflective oven in the summer.

I just got two samples in the mail today, one with adhesive and one without. They look nice and feel nice. I need to figure out how thick of foam I would need. Although it seems a little slick, trying to see what it would be like when it gets wet. But for the price and my little jon boat I think it will do the trick. I did look at stable mats and thought that they were a little to heavy for me.

I used this on the last one. The cross member braces were 2" so I ordered a 4'X8' X 2" sheet from the lumber yard. The replacement removed enough weight from the boat to make it sit 8" higher in the water.

That looks good. I'm gonna copy that. What did you put down on top of that? I've decided to probably not put the foam in this link. It seems like it could wear out real quick. I've been looking at some 1/16 AL or some lightweight board from a sign shop then some kind of foam on top of that.

I was considering the hydro turf and then late last fall saw a review where the hydro turf chipped and flaked apart after a year of abuse and use and gave up on using any thing other than marine carpet in my Jon boat as I don't baby it and abuse it and figured the foam wouldn't last as long as marine carpet does. Just my 2 cents

It is an aluminum boat so all floors and deck were already aluminum. When I get around to replacing the carpet on my pontoon boat I will probably replace the plywood floor with aluminum. I will be interested I where you get your aluminum at.

this is the front casting deck removed from the boat and prepped for carpet.



Here here is finished carpet. Each piece of decking was carpeted before riveting back to frame.

I think it was 1/16" aluminum on the deck.

Be sure to use quality marine carpet. Marine as in not looped carpet. You don't want to have to cut every hook you drop on the floor out of the carpet. I used 18 oz marine carpet (that is non-looped and rubber backed) which was a higher quality than Lowes used when they built the boat. If you looked at my January post on the Texoma board I showed most steps in the disassembly and carpet and reassembly of the boat.