Marine upholstery yardage guide
A single fold-down or bucket boat seat — bottom and back — typically takes about 2 yards of 54-inch marine vinyl. A pontoon bench runs roughly 0.7 to 0.8 yards per foot of length, so an 8-foot bench is around 6 yards. A full pontoon interior commonly lands between 12 and 20 yards depending on layout. Those are starting figures for ordering, not substitutes for measuring — and every one of them should be rounded up.
The arithmetic below is simple enough to do on the dock, and doing it takes ten minutes against the risk of running half a yard short on a job you cannot dye-lot match later.
The method
For each cushion, work out the panel size before you think about yardage.
- Measure the face, following the curve of the cushion rather than the flat of the base.
- Add the sides. A 4-inch-thick cushion adds 4 inches on each side it wraps — 8 inches to that dimension.
- Add the wrap-under, usually about 2 inches per side, for what gets stapled or hog-ringed beneath the board.
- Add seam allowance, about 1/2 inch per edge that will be sewn.
- Lay the panel against 54 inches and see how many fit side by side. Anything over 27 inches wide means one panel per width of the roll.
Worked examples
| Piece | Working | Yardage |
|---|---|---|
| Fold-down seat, bottom 18 × 18 × 4 in | 18 + 8 (sides) + 4 (wrap) ≈ 30 in each way, plus seam allowance ≈ 32 × 32 in. Too wide to nest two across 54 in, so it takes 32 in of roll | ~0.9 yd |
| Same seat, back panel | Similar dimensions, another 32 in of roll | ~0.9 yd |
| One complete seat | Both panels plus a margin | ~2 yd |
| Pontoon bench bottom, 8 ft × 20 × 4 in | 96 in long exceeds the 54-in width, so it runs down the roll: 96 + 8 + 4 ≈ 108 in | ~3 yd |
| Same bench, backrest | Comparable length, similar run | ~3 yd |
| 8-ft bench, complete | ~6 yd |
The pattern worth internalising: anything longer than 54 inches has to run down the length of the roll, and that is what makes bench seating expensive in yardage terms compared with individual seats.
Typical whole-boat figures
| Job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Single fishing or fold-down seat | 2 yd |
| Pair of bucket seats | 4 yd |
| Helm chair with armrests | 3–4 yd |
| Bass boat, seats and jump seats | 6–10 yd |
| Pontoon, per foot of bench | 0.7–0.8 yd |
| Full pontoon interior | 12–20 yd |
| Runabout, full interior | 10–16 yd |
Four things that change the number
- Pattern and grain direction. A directional grain or an embossed pattern means every panel has to run the same way, which kills nesting and can add 15–20% to the total. Solids nest freely.
- Pleats and rolls. Pleated or rolled-and-tucked work consumes considerably more material than a flat panel of the same finished size — the material is being taken up by the detail.
- Piping and welt. Cut from the same material, it comes off the yardage. Cut on the bias it comes off faster.
- Mistakes. First-time work has a scrap rate. Budget for it rather than discovering it.
Always buy the extra yard
This is the one piece of advice worth more than the rest of the article. Dye lots cannot be matched reliably later. Vinyl from a different production run of the same colour can be visibly different side by side, and it shows most in exactly the conditions a boat lives in — full sun, wet, at an angle.
Running half a yard short on a six-yard job means either finishing in two shades or re-ordering the whole quantity. An extra yard on the original cut is cheap insurance, and leftover marine vinyl always finds a use.
Before you order
Order samples first and look at them in the light the boat actually lives in — screen colour is not sun colour, and grain does not photograph.
If you would rather not do the arithmetic, tell us the boat and what you are recovering and we will work the yardage with you. We also stock complete marine seat kits built on Pinnacle if you want vinyl, sew foam and matched thread in one go.
Cut by the yard, no minimums, ships in one to two business days when in stock from High Point, North Carolina.