A great catamaran sunshade solution

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:01][music] [music] >> Today we're going to look at this sun shade we got here from multihullnets.com. Last year we were desperate to get some shade up on the front here both to cover our windows and give us a place to hang out in the shade up front and this thing has been a great solution. We've been using it for about 2 months now. It sets up really easy by just attaching to the uh corners there.

[00:00:25]You just take about six measurements then you send it to the company and then about a month they'll have a shade made for you. I really like how easy and nicely it tensions. We've had it up to about 20 knots of wind, maybe 25 knots of wind and it really doesn't flap around much at all. Last year I think I tried about three different setups with tarp various tarps and shade nettings and canvas and it was just so frustrating trying to get them tensioned and they would just start flapping around like crazy and uh or tearing. Uh and then none of them lasted very long.

[00:00:54]So I just wanted to have a have one made that was going to work and this thing has been fantastic. It's super well made. Very nice reinforcements against some weather patches here and stuff.

[00:01:02]>> Dyneema rope running around the entire thing.

[00:01:05]And their little tensioning system is just genius. It makes it super easy to set up. They even made this clever uh zipper that go around our baby stay in the middle which was always kind of challenging to figure out. I can have the thing set up all by myself in about 5 minutes and getting that direct sun off the windows and cabin top really cools the boat down. So I will show you how we set it up right now. I just keep it in our forward sail locker when I'm not using it.

[00:01:32]So you attach the sling that I include with it around your jib and I just try to get it as high as I can.

[00:01:39]Then you attach the corners to the stanchions and then we for our side we have a baby stay so they made this uh slot that buckles and zips around there.

[00:01:49]Then you can attach it to the the jib.

[00:01:53]Attach your other corner right there.

[00:01:56]They have tensioners on here but we just them with carabiners so it would always be the same uh tension. And then we use the tensioners on the back here. Super clever.

[00:02:05]Very easy. I always use in trucker's hitches in my DIY ones. These tensioners are the way to go. I can tell you that.

[00:02:11]And then they let you get nice and tight really easy.

[00:02:13]So then we attach this uh just a rope around the mast. You could also do a pad eye here.

[00:02:18]And we get that nice and taut.

[00:02:21]And that could be you could call that done. But I found you get the they they give you two rings here so you can attach a halyard and that just gets a little higher so we don't have to duck underneath it. And I think it makes it really nice. So just tighten up our halyard and there you go. You got yourself a shade.

[00:02:35]And just 5 minutes you could do with one person or two people maybe even faster.

[00:02:39]And it just it just looks so nice and taut. They got those catenary curves.

[00:02:45]So my notes after using it for a couple months, I would say what I like about it is the tensioning system. It's very easy. I also like the I guess the shade coverage to difficulty of setting up ratio. I see a lot of catamarans with these kind of really big setups which have just just dozens of places where you have to do connections and they look like I would never end up using them cuz it'd be too difficult. So I think this is kind of a sweet spot between, you know, how much effort it takes to put up and then the amount of coverage you get.

[00:03:12]Uh it is a mesh so rain will come through but it does block out pretty much all the the light coming through.

[00:03:19]Um I think it's kind of a good thing to have as a mesh because it does create some windage. Um that would be maybe one downside of having a shade up there adding a little bit of windage so it moves around a little bit more at anchor. Um but yeah, but having the mesh will help a little bit with that. If it's going to be, you know, like some squalls coming through, we can we roll we'll roll it up. We can leave the thing um up in the middle and just roll the the edges to the middle and that kind of keeps it from um blowing the boat around and keeping us awake at night. I've even found I can set this thing up while we're sailing if we had going downwind with the spinnaker. It's just really nice to have the setup here in the front watching the spinnaker.

[00:03:55]So you can use it kind of when you're sailing. I would be careful about like motoring into a marina or something with it up because it makes it the windage kind of makes it a little bit harder to dock. But yeah, if it's like calm you can you can motor or sail with the spinnaker with the thing up. As far as downsides, I guess it's going to take up some room in your locker. So it's taking up some storage space. So you probably I would probably only get one if I was going to use it and we definitely use it so it's worth it for us. It's a little extra weight. It's about 30 lb.

[00:04:18]Catamarans you're trying to keep stuff light. Uh but again, it's pretty heavy duty so it's not shouldn't should last longer than our other shades. I had a shade that only lasted a week and it just tore through.

[00:04:27]So I think it's worth it to have a heavy heavy duty shade.

[00:04:31]And they're a little expensive. I mean, I think they cost they're around 2,000 for one for our size boat. So it is an expense. But just the time it saves to have one custom made and it just looks way nicer than a lot of the other stuff you could see on other boats just using tarps or various DIY ones. I think it just tends to fit really nicely and smooth. So we've been very happy with it. If you're going to get one, I'll put a link in the description and let them know I sent you. We're hoping to get there they make some bean bags and nets also so we're stoked to try those out in the future.