“I’d like leather,” Rick said. Two sets of eyes met and looked back at Rick. Taking a breath, a man with a tan had a plan, and that plan was “Ultraleather”.

“We find that many of our clients are gravitating towards Ultraleather. It’s easy to take care of, it’s really what you want on a boat.” The other man nodded in agreement.

One thing led to another. An Ultraleather Brisa sample book was brought out. Rick found himself deciding what colour would work best with our cherry interior.

A sales pitch peppered with “UV qualities” and “bring out the beauty of the boat” enveloped Rick, but he remained skeptical. The other man chimed in, “You can’t very well go sailing with these cushions,” as he wrinkled his nose, carefully turning over his Ray-Ban sunglasses, and blowing on them suddenly.

Ultraleather Becomes a Line Item in Our Ultra-Long Excel Spreadsheet

This was in 2015, the year we bought our boat. Rick was weary of making decisions. His spreadsheet was getting longer by the minute. Every entry seemed like it was putting us further away from actually sailing. And now, he was being told that we couldn’t go sailing with crap cushions.

In hindsight, this was sheer bollocks. In fact, the worn-looking cushions would have worked just fine with young children.

Young Kids on a Sailboat: Wet Hair, Don’t Care

Our kids didn’t give a hoot about the appearance of our saloon cushions. In the early days, they spent most of their time jumping off the back of the boat. Then they’d run inside. Oft-heard phrases were:

“Shower first, please.”

“No wet swimsuits on the couch.”

And one of my kids might respond:

“My swimsuit is dry,” or “I put a towel down.”

Our visitors would sometimes throw a towel down under their sitting spot and I would feel my spine tingle. It was times like these that I wished we had just kept the old cushions. No muss. No fuss.

Durability of Ultraleather

To be clear, Ultraleather is marketed as a durable, luxe product. The Brisa product line is kind of a notch above in terms of buttery softness. It is described as follows:

Using something called the Wyzenbeek test, standard Ultraleather allows for 400,000 double rubs. The Brisa line, being softer, allows for 300,000 double rubs.

Ultraleather Rubs Us the Wrong Way

Suffice it to say, in nine years we probably exceeded our allotment of double rubs.

9 years x 365 days = 3,295 days total
Assumptions: 6 people @ 20 rubs per day = 120 rubs/day
3,295 days x 120 rubs = 394,200

Maybe we were aggressively rubbing.

The polyurethane began to rub bare. The rayon held moisture beneath the surface. Picture a damp skirt on a hot day under a tarp and that is about the same level of humidity as our Ultraleather cushions.

Then, one day, one of my children decided to tape Christmas decorations around the saloon – on the windows, on the walls, and on one of our Ultraleather couch cushions – using duct tape.

We removed the duct tape with the utmost delicacy. Being of the Christmas spirit, we did our very best to conceal our anguish upon seeing a rectangular bare spot ripped on the top centre cushion of our couch.

As time wore on, so did the couch cushions. The fabric began to separate from the stitching. The fabric darkened in places.

We covered the cushions with slipcovers but made a rookie error by picking a solid colour. A pattern might have hidden a myriad of sins. But a solid showed every mark and mishap. In the days of the slipcovers, we were averaging about 5 spills a week.

The Sunbrella slipcovers stood up better than the Ultraleather, but when I cleaned them, the Ultraleather was exposed. A night relaxing with a movie was unpleasant. While lying down, I could clearly see that the Ultraleather cushions were not just dark, they were mildewed.

Sunbrella Sample

Tan 4614-0000

(Used for our Saloon slipcovers)

No Photos Please!

Unfortunately, I don’t have close-up pictures of our worn and tired looking Ultraleather cushions. And, pictures of mouldy-looking Ultraleather are not readily available on the Internet. To take photos of my couch would be like asking you to take a photo under your oven and send it to your family, friends, and people you have not met. No one is judging, mind.

The best photo I’ve got shows a bit of mildew forming in the corner cushion, and alongside a Sunbrella slipcover. The photo was taken in December 2018. At this point the Ultraleather cushions were three years old.

Suffice it to say, when we got to Malaysia in 2024, the saloon cushions needed to be changed. We were done with Ultraleather, and Rick was again thinking, “Leather”.

Next Blog Post in the Upholstery Series: A Fresh Start for Our Boat’s Upholstery in Malaysia