by Rick D. 1995 U-300SE 40′
After having no luck ordering a tow skirt online, I decided to just make one from some leftover shade cloth. It has worked flawlessly and is easy to put on. Cost for everything was about $60.00
I was rushing to get it done for our trip to Florida and just measured the width of the coach, width of toad, distance from eyebolts added on the coach to the eyebolts added on the toad, added several inches to each end so that the material could be folded over and hemmed to allow the bungee cord to fit. I am not very competent at sewing so I did several test pieces to figure out what allowances and cuts I needed and borrowed my daughter-in-laws sewing machine to finish it up. The material sews very easily with a basic home sewing machine and some UV resistant thread that I bought from a sailing shop several years ago. 1/4″ UV resistant bungee was bought off of e-bay and just used the aforementioned dimensions to determine the bungee length. The completed skirt came out great as you can see.
My tow skirt has worked out great. No noticeable wear in 10K towed miles. I am now using one piece of the electrician’s grey PVC for the hold-up bar because the std plumbing PVC shattered one day when I dropped it. I added eyelets to the ends of the hold-up bar and I store it by hanging it from a couple of carabiners attached to the coach eyelets. Make sure you use high-quality marine grade UV resistant elastic cording, cheap stuff might break.
The bungee cord slides in the fabric which is folded over and sewn together to form a pocket similar to what a curtain rod would go thru. I left the bungee cord long until I got the right length and then just tied the ends together. You can sew all the pockets and then fish the cording thru when done so make the pocket large enough so that you will be able to do this easily.
Here are the materials for the tow skirt along with an alternative for the shade cloth. Below are the links or info for the purchase of the materials.
Shade cloth (Approx 6′ x 9′)
Bungee cord (Approx 25′)
Sail thread (Sailrite V92 or V96?)
Eyebolts and carabiners (6 each total, 4 on the coach, 2 on toad)
3/4″ PVC pipe and 2 couplers (approx 6′)
1/4″ diameter clip pin to join the two halves of the PVC together
The green tow skirt that I made was from the Home Depot material noted below
Coolaroo 6 ft. x 15 ft. Shade Cloth Heritage Green (90% UV Block) Model # 302238
Internet # 100656899 $36.97 /RL-Roll
Bungee cord off of E-bay
50 ft x 1/4″ shock cord (Dacron Jacket) Price: US $8.99