Best Boat Trailer Bunk Carpet (2021)

A boat trailer bunk carpet protects boat hulls from scratches when launching, trailering and loading.

That’s the entire point of one. That’s its one job.

Naturally, you wouldn’t expect any of them to be so poorly designed or be such cheap garbage that they’re useless for the one thing that they’re for. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. There’s so many of them out there.

Not only that, but we see that the other review articles out there aren’t helping things at all. They just put basically everything available in a numbered list and say they’re all good, with a few rewritten product description points to pad out the praise.

We’re not going to do that. Instead, we’re going to take a fresh look at this and do it justice, starting with some useful pointers that are definitely worth knowing about before we take more of an in-depth look at the brands of boat trailer bunk carpets out there that are actually worth considering.

However, if at this point you want to skip all the other talk and just look at the products we recommend further down, then they’re all here in this table below.

Product	Why Choose This One?
Polymat 20oz Boat Trailer Bunk Carpet	Best 20oz Non-Woven Option At 20oz per square yard, this is actually what you could call a carpet, unlike the vast amount of 12oz ones out there that are more like felt. The two things people look for is a thick enough carpet, and one that wont’ rip after 5 uses. This one checks both boxes. From Amazon
CE Smith Trailer Bunk Carpet	Best Non-Woven Mid-Range 16oz Option Available in lesser quantities. 16oz and clearly high quality. When cutting this one year can tell that it’s really tough. That’s the most important thing you’re looking for above all. From Amazon

First, let’s look at some of the red flags to look out for. We’re taking this “what not to look for” kind of approach because boat trailer bunk carpets are more of a thing where they’re good because they don’t have one of these flaws.

As in, there isn’t particularly any way you could say a boat trailer bunk carpet “excels” at what it does. They’re more about doing their job by not falling apart after a number of uses.

A boat trailer bunk carpet either prevents scratches or it doesn’t. Beyond that, durability is all that matters.

So, discounting anything that has been shown by customers to not even be able to prevent scratches (we haven’t found any like that yet, at least), the only thing left to consider is durability. Let’s look into that some more here.

Price, of course, matters too, so we’ll consider both budget-range options and best overall options along the way.

The Issues with a Lot of Boat Trailer Bunk Carpets Out There

There really are some stellar examples of everything that can go wrong with a boat trailer bunk carpet out there.

Even just looking at the reviews on some of them like Carpet by the Foote’s selection on Amazon (here, and here), you can see these same points come up over and over again:

• It falls apart when getting it out of the plastic bag. Basically it’s already useless before it arrives because it’s so flimsy and not cut at the seam.
• It rips when cutting it with a razor because it’s far too thin.
• It’s extremely prone to having frayed plastic edges, even so much so, that it’s usually already frayed like that out the box.

And to add to that, just look at the customer pictures of how it disintegrates after ~5 uses or so. With a quality product, that should never happen.

Not even a defect in the manufacturing process could make an otherwise good carpet so thin and so poor quality that it just wears down immediately when you use it for its intended purpose.

So, instead of all that, here’s some rules of thumb for choosing a good one.

What to Look for in a Boat Trailer Bunk Carpet

Above all, a carpet being too thin is the number one thing to avoid.

The solution? Your best indicator what’ll be a good carpet is the ounces per square yard measure.

Simply put, look for at least a 16oz boat trailer bunk carpet.

Here is one such example of one that’s easily thick enough for the job. At 20oz, it’s basically the thickest you can get. Here it is below:

Best 20oz Non-Woven Option

Other than that, if you’re looking for a more of a mid range budget-friendly alternative when you don’t need quite as much carpet, then the boat trailer bunk carpet that by far stands out above the rest is the one by CE Smith. Here it is below, once again.

Best Non-Woven Mid-Range 16oz Option

As for anything more budget-friendly than these, sorry, but there really isn’t anything that’s worth it. You’re basically in “falling apart within 5 uses” territory here.

So, in the end, you’re saving money by getting the best value effective one here. Below that, you’re just going to be ending up buying a better one anyway once it breaks.

Even so, if you look at the prices of either of the two above, they don’t even particularly cost more than the terrible quality stuff out there.

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We hope this guide to the best boat trailer bunk carpets has been helpful.

If there’s anything good that you think we’ve missed, or if you have any questions about anything, then let us know down in the comments below.