Here is one of my modified spray skirts, as requested.
(Above) Side profile.
(Above) Front profile.
(Above) Rear profile.
I had an issue where my more forward seating position made the spray skirt too tight around the waist. To address this, the torso funnel was cut off and four additional 150GSM fabric panels were cut from the fill bags. Two of the panels are cut in a way to offer a lot of added material behind the seat.
The panels are welded wherever possible and sewn everywhere else. This has to be done in a way that bunches the fabric, otherwise it will not retain the cone shape. Seam grip is applied, as always.
It’s a bit Frankenstein, but this design allowed the reuse of existing fabric and has the give needed to handle heavy waves without detaching from the combing ring.
Funny enough, it seems MRS might have had a spray skirt design that did something similar at one point.
To see how it looks in action, refer to one of my previous posts where I’m sitting in a boat.
I’ve also added shoulder straps. Use a single tri-glide per strap if you want a skirt to be adjustable. I have one with adjustment and one without as I don’t need adjustable straps for my personal boat.
In the most ideal situation, rather than adding a ton of material in the rear of the skirt, the combing ring opening would be repositioned forward to account for the more aggressive seating position.
Lastly, I’ve added ten strips of velcro all around the skirt and pull tabs at both the front and rear. The velcro speeds up the process of attaching the skirt from 0:30 – 1:30 to under 20 seconds. The rear pull tab also allows me to get it over the rear area more easily and center it.
Perhaps a more ideal setup would use less velcro and instead offer double-strength elastic cables.
Mat’s kits are generally excellent. However, the current spray skirt is probably the one bit of kit that I feel needs a bit of work to be ready for more serious waters. Even assuming a user doesn’t adjust the seating position, and assuming they are using the new recommended combing ring, I still think the vanilla design is vulnerable to a wave pulling the skirt off the combing ring.