Posts: 291
Location: Madison, WI | I just picked up a new boat from Cabelas and had them put their "highest" end cover on it. The cover I received was made by Dowco for Cabelas and it was a ratchet strap system. It had one strap on the front, one on each side in the middle and one on each end at the transom. There was also a strap that attached the two ends by the motor. It was also custom built to fit a 60" shafted Terrova.
One trip up to the Turtle Flambeau last week with the cover on for both legs of the trip (4 hours) and the report isnt promising for this one. Both back end straps had almost worn thru by rubbing on the back end of the boat where the bottom section of aluminum meets the transom aluminum, turns out thats sharper than I had ever thought. The cover also has two pole sections that only make the wind grab the front of the cover and "balloon" that bad boy up about 3-4 feet in the air going down the road, I stopped and took the poles out which helped some, but not much. It actually lifted the cover so much that the ends of the cover did not even sit on the edge of the boat, meaning there was a about a 5-6" gap between the end of the boat at the bottom of the cover, again, killer for some sweet gas mileage. Plus with the cover only having the two side straps and if "lifting" so much it put all that stress on those lonely little straps and granted they held, but its only a matter of time on them. The only way I could keep the cover from wanting to rise up off the boat in the front section was to ratchet that bad boy so #*^@ tight that there is no way they would advise that.
Long story short, took it back to Calelas and they took pictures of it to send to DowCo and I am awaiting word on it. The person I dealt with at Cabelas (who was very good to work with) said that I wasnt the only one who had complaints and it was an ongoing issue with those covers and Cabelas was looking into the problems.
This might not be the exact model but Im pretty sure this was their highest end cover. Buyer beware. |
