Finally, somewhere to put your drink out on the water.
4.9 from 98 Steadi reviewsA flexible base that grips your can, bottle, or 40 oz tumbler on the vinyl, the cooler lid, the gunwale, or the dash — wherever you're actually sitting, not just the two holders molded into the helm.
Grab yours — from $14.95No suction, no drilling — ships free, 30 days to prove it on your own boat.
Will your tumbler fit the fins? A sticky note answers it, koozie and all — the test is below ↓
How it goes
The boat gave the helm two cup holders and forgot everyone else.
Whether it's a pontoon, a bow rider, a center console, or the family cruiser, the builder handed the driver two molded holders and called the job done. Everyone at the bow, on the stern lounge, or rafted up at the sandbar has been improvising ever since — and you've done it so many trips running that you stopped noticing.
A can set down on the lounge pad sinks into the foam before the boat's even out of the no-wake zone, tilting off vertical on its own. Spill it and vinyl forums say the same thing twice over: a sugary drink turns the surface sticky and can brown it for good, and the cleaner strong enough to cut the stain can leave its own residue behind.
It's the closest thing to a table most boats have — flat, central, reached by everyone for the next round. Which means it also gets opened for the next round, so whatever was resting on it has to be lifted off first or it goes over with the lid.
The rounded, gel-coated top edge of the hull sits exactly where an arm wants to rest a can, wetted by spray all day. It's also the one surface on the boat with open water directly underneath, so a drink knocked off the gunwale doesn't land on deck to be mopped up — it's just gone.
Molded plastic or gel coat, baking in the sun and buzzing with engine vibration underway. Anything smooth-bottomed set there walks itself sideways a little at a time and slides off on the first turn — no wake required.
Set a can on the floor and it's in the way the moment anyone needs to brace, reach for a handhold, or step past — one roll and it's kicked over. Marine carpet holds what it catches, which is why Mercury Marine publishes its own guide for getting drink stains back out.
Hands are already full of lines, bags, and the cooler climbing back aboard over the transom, so every drink gets set down 'for a second' right there. It's wet, at water level, and rocking with each step — exactly the moment a passing wake picks to arrive.
None of it ends the day. It's a boat with two cup holders and everyone aboard wanting somewhere flat to set a drink — so everyone reaches for whatever's nearby without thinking twice about it.
Sound familiar
Every boat day already has these minutes in it.
Drinks come out and land on the cooler lid and the sun pad, engines off, water flat calm. The boat that crossed the cove two minutes ago is long gone — its wake isn't, and it rolls through and takes every drink standing on a flat surface at once.
Everyone idled out with a can set on the dash or the seat beside them. The throttle comes up, the bow lifts coming onto plane, and everything that wasn't held slides aft and goes down before the hull even levels out.
Three or four boats tied together, people wading between them and climbing over rails with a drink in one hand. Every bump one boat takes travels down the whole raft, and any can left on a gunwale is one bump from the lake.
The one moment everyone aboard needs both hands free. Every drink on the boat gets orphaned on a seat cushion at the exact second the hull bumps the dock and rocks the whole cockpit.
Nobody wants to hold a can into the wind for thirty straight minutes, so it gets wedged between the seat and the gunwale and rides there half-watched — until the boat comes off plane and it tips.
The simple physics
Built for a deck that never sits level.
A cushion, a cooler lid, a gunwale cap — none of them are flat the way a table is. The wide, low base lies across whatever's underneath instead of pushing a single point into foam or balancing on a curve.
Flexible fins close around the drink's bottom inch from the sides — can, bottle, or tumbler, whatever shape's riding along — so it can't rattle loose as the hull moves.
A wake rolls through, the boat comes up on plane, someone grabs the rail beside it — the wide base keeps its weight low, so it rocks instead of letting it walk, and brings the drink back level.
The paper test
The whole fit test packs in the boat bag.
lands in here
A square sticky note: 3 inches, exactly — same as the ceiling of what fits in the fins.
The classic square is exactly 3 inches on a side. That's a fact about sticky notes — and it happens to be the exact ceiling of what fits.
Test it the way it actually rides on the boat — can in a koozie, tumbler with the lid on. Look at the bottom, not the rim; that's the only measurement that matters.
Base sits inside the square? It fits. Hangs over the edges? Too wide. A tiny puck lost in the middle — under 2 inches? Too narrow.
No calipers on the water, no guessing at the ramp. One sticky note, one glance, with the exact can or tumbler that's coming aboard today.
What fits
The bottom inch decides what stays aboard.
The rule is one line: a container base 2 to 3 inches across settles into the fins. Every verdict below follows from it — koozie included, since a koozie counts as part of the can.
- Stanley 40 oz H2.0 FlowState Quencher fits
- Yeti Rambler 30 oz fits
- Standard 12 oz can fits
- Slim seltzer can (White Claw, Truly) fits
- Beer can in a foam koozie fits
- Plastic water bottle fits
- Red Solo-style party cup fits
- Glass bottle beer fits
- Travel mug or thermos, no handle fits
- Travel mug or thermos, handled handle in the way
There's a floor as well as a ceiling — under 2 inches, a base sits too loose for the fins to close around, wake or no wake. A koozie counts as part of the can, so run the test with it on. And the handled travel mug is the honest exception: the base is the right size, but the handle lands exactly where a fin needs to grip.
The full fit database — Stanley, Red Bull, Yeti, and 30 more, with sourced base measurements →
Why this
Three reasons it rides out the wake.
Grips through the wake, not just at anchor
The wide base spreads across whatever it's set on instead of balancing on a single point. A wake rolls the boat, the base rocks with it, and the drink settles back instead of walking toward the rail.
Takes the vinyl, the cooler lid, the gunwale, and the dash
One base works the whole boat — the lounge cushion at the bow, the flat lid amidships, the rounded cap by your elbow, the vibrating dash at the helm. Move seats and the drink spot moves with you.
Nothing to rust, crack, or corrode
One piece of flexible material, with no metal hardware exposed to spray and no rigid plastic left to go brittle in the sun. It rinses off with everything else at the end of the day and goes right back to work the next.
The competition, honestly
Set against what's already living in the console.
| The factory cup holders | The Marine Cup Holder | |
|---|---|---|
| Which seats get a holder | Two, both at the helm | Every seat — bow, cooler lid, gunwale, dash |
| Fits today's big tumblers | Cut for a can decades ago | Reads the bottom inch — the 40 oz Stanley fits |
| Moving to another seat | Stays bolted where it was installed | Comes with you in a second |
| A season of sun and spray | Rigid plastic — goes brittle in UV, can crack | One flexible piece, nothing to crack |
| Rafted up at the sandbar | No holder at all off the helm | Grips the gunwale the same as the cushion |
| Cost | Already installed — no new purchase, for the two seats it covers | One small purchase, covers the seats the factory left out |
| Through the wake at anchor | Solid once something fits, no flex at all | Flexes with the roll, settles back level |
Sized decades before today's tumblers — the common cutout runs about 3 to 3-3/4 inches — so boating forums are full of 27 to 30 oz Yetis and RTICs that simply don't fit. They're also fixed at the helm, go brittle in UV over the years, and sit open enough to collect rain and spray.
They only grip clean, smooth, non-porous surfaces — useless on textured non-skid, vinyl cushions, or carpet, which is most of a boat. And the failure is sudden: enough of them let go without warning that how-to guides exist just for troubleshooting it.
Marketed for boats but restricted to smooth fiberglass, gel coat, or glass — a textured deck needs a separate mounting disk before it works at all. Listed capacity tops out well under the 30 to 40 oz tumblers most people actually bring aboard.
Each one fits a narrow range of rail diameters and mounting shapes, and the review roundups are framed around finding hardware that 'doesn't rust or rattle loose' — which tells you what usually happens. Once it's clamped on, it serves exactly one seat.
They only work where a holder already exists, so they can't create a spot at the bow seats or the cooler lid. Seating a wide tumbler above a narrow recess also raises its center of gravity instead of lowering it — the opposite of what a rolling boat needs.
From the reviews
What buyers say.
Recent reviews of the Steadi, from every room and rig it lives in.
It works quite well........just need a little more time using it to get the best results.
Susan C. · 2026-07-28Genius! Finally I can sit in a corner of the couch and have my drink next to me. Works beautifully, sturdy and stable. I'm very happy I found this item.
jlhinckley · 2026-07-28Works great! If it saves you from cleaning your sofa or rug or washing anything it is worth it. Give it a try!
Marsha B. · 2026-07-25My kid doesn’t spill his drink in his bed anymore so….. it’s a win!
Jason R. · 2026-07-25Love these!
Angela C. · 2026-07-25Really does keep your drink cans and bottles from tipping over! We are quite impressed with these!
SPK · 2026-07-25All 98 reviews are for the drink base itself, collected across every place people use it.
Why more than one
Two identical tumblers. Whose is whose?
Six people aboard means more than one of the same tumbler shows up in the same color, because everybody bought the popular one. Set down side by side on the cooler lid at the sandbar, they look identical from three feet away — and by the second round, nobody's sure which one has been sitting open in the spray the whole time.
Build your set
Give everyone their own.
Pick a pack, then give each one a color — so nobody has to ask which drink is theirs.
Thirty days of real trips.
Run it for a month — anchored, on plane, tied up at the sandbar. If it doesn't do what this page says, email hello@steadilabs.com and it gets made right. No forms, no fight.
Veteran-founded · Patent pending · Made in Orange, California
Worth knowing
Asked at the dock, answered here.
Does it actually work on vinyl cushions?
That's the surface it's built to answer first. The wide, low base spreads across the cushion instead of sinking a point into the foam, and the fins keep the drink from rattling loose as the boat moves. Bump it and it settles back instead of tipping.
Will it hold through the wake?
Movement is the whole design brief — a boat is never actually still. The low, wide base rocks with whatever it's sitting on and brings the drink back level when a wake rolls through or the hull comes up on plane. It resists tipping; a direct hard hit still gets through, but a rolling wake is exactly what it's built to shrug off.
Will my tumbler fit?
Measure the bottom, not the rim. A base of 2 to 3 inches across fits — the 40 oz Stanley does. Handled travel mugs don't; the handle sits where a fin needs to grip.
Does it clamp to the rail or the gunwale?
No. Nothing drills, clamps, or suctions to anything on the boat. It sits on top of whatever's flat-ish nearby — the cushion, the cooler lid, the dash — and moves seat to seat in a second.
Does it float if it goes over the side?
No — it sinks, the same as almost anything else that goes overboard, and it's worth saying plainly. Soaking it in spray, rain, or a hosed-down deck doesn't bother the material at all. What it can't do is come back up on its own if it goes over the gunwale into open water, so keep it inboard the same as you would a phone.
How do I clean it after a day on the water?
Rinse it with the hose along with everything else that came off the boat, or wipe it down — skip the dishwasher; heat is the one thing not recommended. It's one piece of flexible material with nothing to come apart and nothing for salt to work into.
Will it hold up to a whole season of sun and spray?
It's not the rigid plastic that goes brittle after a summer in the sun — one piece of flexible material, no metal fittings exposed to spray, nothing to rust. It stows however you already stow your gear.
Does it work rafted up at the sandbar with other boats?
Yes — that's a moving, crowded, uneven situation, and this handles all three. It grips the vinyl, the gunwale, or the cooler lid the same as it does underway, so a bump from the boat tied up next to you doesn't end the drink.
Who makes it, and where do I buy one?
It's called the Steadi, molded in small runs in Orange, California by Steadi Labs. Every order ships free from steadilabs.com, with 30 days to change your mind.
The shop
Molded a short drive from the ramp.
The maker is Steadi Labs, a small veteran-founded company in Orange, California. It's injection molded in small runs, and nothing about it travels far — the mold, the material, and the color runs all sit within about three and a half miles of the shop. The people who make it read hello@steadilabs.com themselves, usually before they've hosed down their own boat.
Keep the drink off the vinyl, out of the wake.
The drink rides out the wake at anchor, on plane, and tied up at the sandbar — and the vinyl stays exactly as clean as it started the day.
Grab yours — ships freeCheckout is on steadilabs.com — Steadi Labs is the company that makes it.