Cockpit floor mats

I have a wonderful 21 foot sloop made of fiberglass. The cockpit of the craft is above the water level and water that does slosh in self-bails through the scuppers. Still, anything on the floor of the cockpit will still get wet and may sit in a puddle.  The wood schooner I built has wood slats that make its floor flat and keeps everything off the bottom of the boat and more or less dry. I thought it would be nice to have the same in my sloop. What I came up with was a wood slat mat that rolls up, is easy to clean and easy to store. 

I started with 1”x 2 x 8’ stock pine boards. Stock dimensional lumber is actually smaller than what it is sold as. It is more like ¾ “x1 ½” x 8’. My cock pit is 25” wide, so I was able to get 4 slats out of every 8’ board.

After cutting my slats to length, I drilled a hole 4 inches from the ends of each slat through the ¾” side of the slat. The size of the hole was just larger than the size of nylon cord that was to go through them. I made a wood mat by first threading the cord through the hole in the first board and tying a knot so it would not pull back through. Then I tied a second knot on the other side of the hole.  Next, you thread the long string end through the next hole and tie a knot. By stringing the slats together with a knot between each slat you can make a flexible wood mat as long as you need it to be. When you get the length you need, run the cord to the other side of the mat and tie them together in the same knot slat knot way but going in the reverse direction. You end up with a wood mat that can be rolled up.

The cock pit matt rolls in to place when you are ready to go out. The wood mats look nice, keep things off the floor, let’s water run through to the scuppers, and is easy on the feet. Cleanup is easy with them. You just roll it up, hose it off and hang to dry. They store in the rolled up position. They look very nautical and they are cheap to make. The also make great door mats. It is unreal how much dirt they will trap and keep out of your house.

 Mats can be hosed off and hung to dry. Different sizes are easy to make. Odd shape mats can be made. This one goes in a small storage locker. 

They make good doormats also.

The mats role up for storage and they are easy on the bare feet.