Not too long ago, adding a sun shade to your boat was pretty simple: you just had to choose between a Bimini top or T-top and then pick out the color. Beyond that, there weren’t many options. In recent years, though, an innovative new crop of removable boat sun shades has hit the market. They vary widely in intended use, ease of installation and cost. Here are five important questions to help you choose the best removable boat sunshade for your vessel, style, and budget.
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Sun Shade Styles
Before we get to the questions, let’s talk briefly about the different styles of removable boat sun shades on the market. There are some designs that don’t neatly into any of these categories, but by and large this is an accurate summary. All of these designs are readily removable when not needed. None of them, except the Wakeshade Universal Extension, are intended to be used when underway at more than idle speed.
Umbrella-style Sun Shades
Basically glorified beach umbrellas, these shades have a central pole and a folding canopy. Marine-specific models feature tiedown lines around the perimeter that are attached to cleats or other anchor points to stabilize the umbrella. TaylorMade and Magma both make popular umbrella shades.
Pole-supported Sun Shades
These are shades without an internal structure. Basically, they are large rectangles of cloth. Two corners are attached to the aft edge of a T-top, hardtop, or Bimini. The other two corners are typically attached to rigid metal poles placed in rod holders near the stern. Then straps or cords are used to stretch the shade tight between the four attachment points. Our Universal Sunshade Kit is a good example.
Folding Sun Shades
These shades have a rigid structure that keeps them stretched open but folds or collapses for storage.
They still need to be mounted to something — usually a rod holder — but they don’t depend on poles or other attachment points to stay open.
The ShadeFin and BocaShade Express are good examples.
Folding shades like the ShadeFin and BocaShade Express can still be used without an existing top.
Outrigger-supported Sun Shades
These somewhat specialized shades are rigged between two outrigger poles to help shade the cockpit of larger boats.
1. Do you already have a Bimini top, T-top, wakeboard tower, or radar arch?
This is the first question to answer because some styles of sun shade are designed only to extend an existing T-top, hardtop or Bimini, rather than as standalone structures.
On these pole-supported designs, like our Universal Sunshade Kit, one end of the shade attaches to the aft edge of the existing top.
The shade itself has no built-in structure.
For wakeboard boats, specialized shades like the Wakeshade Universal Shade Extension clamp to the tower.
Folding sun shades, such as the ShadeFin, ShadeFin Mini, and BocaShade Express, are designed to mount in rod holders. The elevated rod holders typically found along the aft edge of a T-top or hardtop are an ideal location, but these shades can still be used without an existing top.
Normally, this requires a telescoping pole mount that can be dropped into a gunwale rod holder.
Likewise, umbrella style sun shades are designed to be used without an existing top. They are essentially oversized, overbuilt square beach umbrellas with tiedown lines or straps at the corners intended to be attached to cleats to stabilize the structure. Umbrella-style shades can also be used to extend Biminis or T-tops if desired.
2. Do you have (or want to install) gunwale or transom rod holders?
Whether you have rod holders or not affects also which styles of sun shade you can use on your boat. Pole-supported shades, which lack their own internal structure, typically depend on rigid aluminum or stainless steel poles placed in rod holders to support their aft end.
Of course, you can always install flush-mount rod holders specifically for your sun shade poles, but that involves more money, effort, and holes in your boat.
Other options are plastic or metal surface-mount rod holders, which don’t require boring large holes, and SeaSucker vacuum mounts, which allow rod holders to be easily removed when not needed.
Pole-supported shades, which lack their own internal structure, typically require rod holders for the rigid metal poles that support their aft corners.
Rod holders are the default mounting method for internally supported sun shades like the ShadeFin and BocaShade Express, but are not strictly required. Rail-mount bases are available for the ShadeFin, while BocaShade offers a hardtop base that bolts to the top or bottom of an existing top. The ShadeFin Mini can be mounted in a variety of ways, including to seat bases, square rails, round rails, and even kayak mounting tracks.
Umbrella-style sun shades are the least dependent on rod holders. They require only cleats or other attachment points for the corner tiedowns, although clamp-on rail mounts are available.
3. How much shade do you want?
All the shade you can get, right? Well, it’s not necessarily that simple. The ideal size of your sun shade depends on several factors, including not just your budget but also the size and configuration of your boat, and your intended use.
For example, if you spend most of your time fishing solo on your small, open boat, you’ll want to consider something small and easy to move around, like the ShadeFin Mini, or even a garden-variety beach umbrella. On the other hand, if you regularly have a dozen of your best friends hanging out in the cockpit of your 36-foot center console, you’ll want as much coverage as you can get.
By nature, pole-supported sun shades that stretch between the aft edge of a T-top or hardtop and a pair of metal poles near the stern can generally be larger than other styles. For instance, the large size of our Universal Sunshade Kit is roughly 12’ long by 8’ wide.
Folding designs like the ShadeFin and BocaShade Express are smaller; both measure 6’ x 5’. Magma’s cockpit umbrella is about 4’5” square, while Taylor Made’s Anchor Shade III is slightly larger at 6’ square.
The bottom line is that if you want to keep more than two or three people out of the sun with a removable boat shade, your best bet is a pole-supported design. Smaller shades in the 6’ x 5’ range are fine for smaller groups but not enough to shade a large cockpit.
On the other hand, with option adjustable mounts, folding shades like the ShadeFin and BocaShade can be adjusted to different angles. When the sun is lower in the sky, that can make a huge difference in coverage when compared to a shade that’s fixed in the horizontal plane.
When the sun is lower in the sky, being able to adjust the angle of your shade can make a huge difference in coverage.
4. Do you want to shade different areas?
Some styles of sun shade can move around the boat with you — or even to the beach. Others are pretty well fixed in place. Pole-supported shades like the Universal Sunshade Kit, for example, need to be stretched between four fixed points. Normally those are the two aft corners of a T-top or Bimini and two long poles placed in rod holders near the stern. If you happen to have rod holders forward of your top in the correct location, you can rig this style of top from the front of your T-top instead of the back, but that’s about all the choice you have.
On the other hand, sun shades that can be dropped into rod holders can essentially go anywhere on your boat you’ve got a rod holder.
You might, for instance, want to move your sun shade to protect the forward seating area of a bow rider or center console. Or, depending on the angle of the sun, you might want to move your shade around to different rod holders on your T-top for maximum protection. Maybe best of all, you can even move these shades into a gunwale rod holder and turn them outward for shade while lounging next to the boat at the sandbar.
Sun shades that can be dropped into rod holders can essentially go anywhere on your boat you’ve got a rod holder.
Umbrella-style sun shades can also be moved around the boat. They’re not as easy to move as rod-holder mounted shades — since moving them requires undoing and redoing the tiedown lines — but they can go almost anywhere, not just where there’s a rod holder. They can even be removed from the boat entirely and set up on the shore, which sets them apart from other styles.
5. What do you plan to spend?
Boat sun shades vary widely in price. At the low end of the spectrum, umbrella-style shades run in the $100 to $200 range. Various DIY solutions — like a large beach or patio umbrella dropped in a rod holder — can be even less. More expensive, self-supported options can exceed $1,000. Unsupported shades like the Universal Sunshade tend to fall in the middle.