Ratchet and webbing for boat cover drawstring

[babock]

I have seen a few boat covers online that use webbing and a ratchet instead of a rope in the hem of a boat cover. Anyone else done that and how do you create the pocket the the ratchet goes in?

[Darren Henry]

I've done it several times and it works great. To make the pocket I just sew a piece of velcro on  the cover above the ratchet and a rectangle with the edges hemmed and the other half of the velcro on the inside of the cover. This rectangle then wraps around the hem and over the ratchet to form the pocket. I'll look tonight to see if I have some pics.

Be careful with the webbing. The last one I did, the webbing I used had too much stretch to suite me.

[babock]

Was planning on using Sunbrella polyester webbing unless that stretches too much.

Which ratchet did you use?

[Darren Henry]

I used to stock and use the heavy duty 1" ratchets from J Ennis fabrics when I had my shop, along with their HD webbing. Guys used to get tie down straps custom made. Here I just buy a decent quality tie down locally and use the ratchet from it.

[Darren Henry]

I finally found the pics of that "pocket"

[babock]

Thanks Darren

[Mike]

I remember june c used to do this  but never asked.    most all cover I do are on boats with t tops and there are zippers at the t top on each side currently I have a pereimeter strap on the cover with nylon side release buckles to connect the strap ant the zipper bottoms. id think a ratchet strap would break these buckles . how do you handle this?