Memory Foam

Or, Gee, that bunk is hard!

You don’t have to live on your boat to need a comfy place to sleep. At the end of a day full of sailing, you’ve done a lot of physical work, and while you probably could sleep on a bed of nails, it should not have to be your only choice.

Enter memory foam. I don’t think that name is trademarked as I have seen it on foam toppers in stores like BIG LOTS and WAL-MART.

I’m not talking about the foam pads, often waffled in texture, from days gone by. I’ve tried those for other purposes. Maybe they make a psychological difference, but by morning your body will know there was nothing of significance on top of that lumpy, or old, or hard, mattress.

Memory foam is different in that it actually improves comfort. Yes. I’m saying it’s worth the money. And it’s not that much money any more. A twin bed-sized memory foam topper, 4” thick, may not cost you more than $100. Put it on top of the hard cushions typically used on most sailboat bunks and you’ll be a happy camper. My vee berth would require a double-bed size, but that doesn’t cost much more. 

Mention of the vee berth in particular brings us to the issue of shape. Very few things come to a right angle on sailboats, and only rarely is something like a berth standard-sized. That means you’re going to have to cut this foam, and cutting 4” foam can be a challenge. (I do recommend getting the 4”, but I like a soft bed.)

Unless you have an electric knife. Happily, I found one at WAL-MART in their small kitchen appliance center for only ten dollars . I didn’t even bother to try to make a pattern. I simply put the foam on the berth, and cut away the extra foam. I recommend doing that in several stages so you don’t accidentally cut away too much. You may find that your berth is, say, 2” shorter than the foam. Don’t try to force the knife through the foam too fast, and try to keep the knife vertical. However, the foam is packaged quite tightly at the factory, and you may find that it won’t really be completely its final shape until about 24 hours after you have unpacked it.

If you shape the foam precisely, it will fit snugly and tend to stay in place. I had to cut the front edge at an angle, as the berth was the width of a twin bed at one end but not the other. In addition, notches had to be cut out of the back edge. But any mess from the foam is easy to clean up afterwards.

These foam toppers come with mattress covers, which quite naturally are rectangular. Getting the cover on your cut foam is a battle and I suggest you have someone to help you with it.

Then flip the mattress over, and get a needle and thread. Pull the mattress cover tight, working from the edges to the middle, and just baste the folds of extra fabric down, and the mattress cover won’t shift around on you. It doesn’t have to look pretty; no one will ever see it. I also suggest putting a second mattress cover over that. That one will go on much easier than the first one did, and be more easily removable for laundering.

If you really want to go all-out, you can also modify a set of twin or double sheets (or whatever size you’re working with) to fit, but since that’s going to show, if you don’t have good sewing skills, find someone who does have the skills to do that. This time you will have to work on the top side, but a good seamstress can take the extra fabric up where the sheet folds over the edge of the foam, and you won’t have to lie on – or look at – a seam going down the middle of your mattress.

I don’t recommend using memory foam instead of the cushions already on your berth. Those cushions are made for a marine environment and meant to hold up to things like people sitting on them. But you can stow them in the vee berth during the day and pull them out at night if you live on your boat, or store them in any place free of dampness if you only use your boat on occasional weekends.

I have found this moderately priced memory foam to be extremely comfortable, and I’m a “Princess and the Pea” kind of woman – if the bed isn’t comfy, it drives me nuts.

Good luck with this, and … sweet dreams!




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