Patent ID: 7555994

Claim:
A ridgepole-less cover system for pontoon boats of the type characterized by horizontal rectangular bars or tubes conventional as the gunwales or top (hand) rails of the left and right (or port and starboard) sides of the boat, said system comprising: a plurality of elongate flexible poles for flexing into arches across the beam of the boat with the opposite ends of each pole forming the spaced bases of each flexed arch thereof and being a distance apart corresponding to the width of the boat's beam between the left and right top rails thereof; a multiplicity of bracket assemblies, a pair of each adapted for forming the left and right anchorages for one flexible tube flexed into an arch; each bracket assembly comprising a zig-zag link, a U-base, and a locking collar; each zig-zag link having an intermediate seating portion flanked between a lower axle portion and an upper cantilevered-stake portion; each U-base comprising an inboard and outboard arm spaced by a bottom web wherein said arms and web are sized and adapted for cupping under a top rail of the side of the boat closely along the bottom and sidewalls of said rail, said outboard arm comprising an apertured upward extension and said inboard arm comprising an apertured upward extension, wherein one of the arms transforms into or carries a saddle that accepts a seating member; wherein said zig-zag link's lower axle portion is sized and adapted for insertion through the apertures in the inboard arm's and outboard arm's upward extension thereby retaining the U-base cupping the side rail; and wherein the zig-zag link's seating portion is seated in the saddle of the U-base to provide positional stability for the zig-zag link in the front to back direction; and each locking collar is sized and adapted for sliding over the U-base's saddle with the zig-zag link's seating portion seated therein in order to retain the zig-zag link from unseating from the U-base; whereby a single worker at no special job site can trim to size elongate pole stock and flex such into relatively low arches at fore-to-aft spaced locations across the beam of the boat, from rail to rail thereof, and anchor stake pockets on the ends thereof on the upper outer cantilevered-stake portions of oppositely attached bracket assemblies in order to form a rib-cage structure of such arches to support a fabric cover and in consequence obviate the need for any ridge or guy poles.