Sunbrella fabric issue?

[Last Dollar]

My son and I have noticed some streaks of white appearing in the fabric of our Bimini tops.
These boats are trailer queens and not in the sun 100% of the time. What can cause this? Is China now making Sunbrella fabric?

 

[KevinC]

My son and I have noticed some streaks of white appearing in the fabric of our Bimini tops.
These boats are trailer queens and not in the sun 100% of the time. What can cause this? Is China now making Sunbrella fabric?

Some pictures may help if you have them available. Sunbrella is a solution dyed acrylic where the individual fibers that are woven have color all the way through and are also UV stabilized. In fact a Sunbrella fabric can be bleach treated. The marine shade fabric also has a 10 year warranty although the supplier of the finished product may offer less.

Without seeing pictures my first inclination would be that something got on the cover and ran causing streaks. I have seen this with "Sea Gull Poop" that lands on the cover and runs. This gets absorbed by the fabric and leaves white lines behind that do not seem to want to go away. They eventually will but the fibers just have the dirt stuck to it so its going to need some help dissolving what is bound to the fibers. A good soaking in a recommended bleach mixture might help.

-Kevin

 

[BarryCF]

"Is China now making Sunbrella fabric?"

Well, yes, I've been in the factory. But it is all for the chinese market. What is sold here is made in the US. However, I have seen suppliers of products claim their fabric is Sunbrella when it clearly isn't. I bought a new hot tub cover for the beach house and paid extra for Sunbrella. When it started to disintegrate it was clearly not Sunbrella (it was some cheaper acrylic product).

How old is this? Even Sunbrella doesn't last forever and should be cleaned and protected occasionally.