I have a poptop with a 3.9m long rollout awning. I was looking for a shade cloth side for the awning and possibly a shade cloth cover for the drivers side of the van to keep the sun off of the back of the fridge. The commercially available shades seemed to be very expensive for what you get so I was looking for an alternative.

A pre-made Coolaroo 5 metre shade sail are relatively cheap considering they have re-inforced edging and metal rings already fitted to the corners. Shade sails also have curved sides with the minimum distance between the centre of opposing sides being 4 metre.

So I bought a shade sail and cut it in half. The local canvas shop sewed a captive rope onto the cut side for me at minimal cost. On the awning I replaced the bolts that hold the awning centre shaft to the top of the leg with eye bolts. The captive rope slides into the awning roller and with a spring clip run through holes in the reinforced sail edging, I can connect the edging to the eyebolt. The half shade sail is then pegged out with only two long pegs and the reinforced edging of the sail act as guy ropes. The half shade sail is 2.5 metre in height so it therefore sits on a 70 degree angle when fitted. This provides additional room under the awning. The curved lower edge of the "wall" allows any wind gusts to blow through without the whole side billowing out too much.

On the drivers side of the van, I fitted a rope track to the roof and fit the other shade sail half to this. As with the awning half sail it only needs two large pegs to fix the sail to the ground. The height from the roof to the ground is higher than the awning to the ground so the half sail fitted to the drivers side of the van sits almost vertical and protects almost the whole side of the van. It is noticeably cooler in the van particulary when the sun would have been beating against the wall.