Sunbrella or Weathermax?

[louis]

Just bought a cover for my Oliver Elite ll.

wondering what's the better material.... Sunbrella or Weathermax. 

I believe the Calmark cover that Oliver sells is Weathermax 

[topgun2]

Well - 

CalMark covers were originally Sunbrella material.  This material is relatively heavy but has been in use for a number of years.

Within the past couple of years CalMark changed to using Weathermax material.  This is lighter in weight as compared to Sunbrella and I would assume that it both wears and protects at least as well.

There are a bunch of opinions about which is better on the boating forums - simply "google" "which is better Sunbrella or Weathermax?"

Certainly time will give us the real answer.  From my experience I can tell you that it will be MUCH easier to place the Weathermax cover on an Elite II.  Just getting the Sunbrella cover onto the roof is almost too much for one person.

Bill

[SeaDawg]

We talked about this awhile ago, when calmark was making the change. As I said then, I  don't have any personal experience with weathermax,  but decades of use of sunbrella in boat and sail covers. 

If you scroll down, you'll find a link to an old practical sailor test of the two fabrics in one of my posts.

Rereading reminded me of two things that i don't think we discussed:

Weathermax is much lighter and easier to handle, and more abrasion resistant. For a huge cover, advantage tilts to weathermax.

Sunbrella fabrics can be cleaned with a mild bleach and soap and water solution, but weathermax can't. (Understand that even mild bleach can weaken stitching, though, and I don'tknow what thread calmark uses.) So, for cleanability, the win probably tilts to sunbrella.

If you Google weathermax vs sunbrella,  you'll find a dozen conversations on boating forums, mostly evenly split.

 

[louis]

Thanks for the info. I will see how it holds up. It will be mostly used in Destin fl.

its only a year old. Thanks for all the info on this forum, we are newbie to the Oliver world.