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Redo ... Open Seating


Arlen

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Well, I flipped my weekender back right side up this morning, and poked around for a couple hours thinking things thru. Having not made any real effort in nearly 4 years, it was good to get aquatinted again. Thinking about Dave R1's open face seat mod mostly, and whether I should consider more effort to expand the cockpit. Just puttering at it this year, but figured the cockpit is the place to start due to my concerns w/ space mentioned a few weeks ago.

If I do the open bench seating I've got a lot of work to do .. or undo. The seats are basically done, the cockpit is bondo'd and the underseat compartments & cabin are sealed w/ 5200, as is the laz. I had also added a companionway deck at the cockpit side of the companionway to stow stuff from inside ... cool feature, but more suited for a bigger boat. Changing to a very simple cockpit w/ open bench seats will mean tearing a lot of completed stuff out and patching the openings in the bulkhead. A lot of work to undo, though I really think I probably should do it to make the cockpit more comfortable. Sitting in the boat this morning and putting my feet in the underseat compartment really strongly suggests its the right thing to do.

A couple of issues seemed obvious, thought you all might have thoughts to offer.

1) When I get rid of the existing seats, there will remain cleats / stringers sealed w/ 5200, and those areas will now be exposed cockpit. I should really glass them. Can I get a good glass bond where 5200 once was?

2) Patching the bulkhead really should mean adding additional cleats / stringers to the hull side, but that would mean putting screws in an already epoxied, fared, sanded & primered hull. Am I just asking for trouble if I grind epoxy back, set new screws into the ply and patch the epoxy w/ a glass cloth patch, or is this something to avoid? I think it should bond completely and be as good as the original epoxy (the hard part being faring it to match the orig), but I want to be sure I'm not introducing a point of inevitable failure.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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Arlen,

I too made my weekender with open seats, but only the aft half of the seat is open. The forward half still is still enclosed and accessible from the cabin. My reason for doing this is that it gives more foot room for the helmsman how needs to get up and move around more than passengers.

The extra leg room makes a difference.

If you have enclosed seat boxes why not just cut an opening in the aft section? Leave the forward section as is.

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Hi JTam, thanks for the response.

Well, sitting there this morning, I considered exactly as you suggest ... it would certainly be easier. I think I may have run across pictures of your boat, or someone else who did the same.

The problem as I see it is the helmsman (me) will likely be seated mid-cockpit due to size and weight, with any crew forward of that. My potential crew includes a couple of family members that make me look scrawny as well. Regardless of what I do, I suspect if a 3rd person is ever along, they'll be relegated to being seated in the companionway with their feet in the cockpit. There's just not enough room for a couple big folks to get situated without opening the cockpit up, and I just can't help but feel all would be far more comfortable w/ the entire cockpit open.

I also thought about cutting the footwells back to inline w/ the existing companionway deck which would be only a little less easy, but even that seems like I'm sacraficing comfort and useful space while sailing for the idea that I may use the cabin for more than I actually will.

I'm pretty much shelving my dreams of overnighting untill I get a bigger boat. The most use the cabin will likely get is an afternoon nap and misc stowage so it really seems like any accomodation for room 'down below' at the cost of room in the cockpit is probably mis-directed. That's where I'm at right now anyway ... appreciate the suggestion though.

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I will probably compromise, but I don't think I'll finish it off "exactly" as is.

But you're right, as much as I can leave alone, the better.

Spent a little more time aboard, and it seems I dismissed JTam's suggestion too quickly. The more I think about it, it's really the only reasonable compromise given where I'm at in the building process. It allows one foot some room anyway, and a guest will most likely sit back to cabin with legs on the opposing seat, so ... on the rare occassion I consider more than that aboard, they'll have to suffer.

Concerning my original questions ....

1) Can I get a good epoxy bond where 5200 once was?

2) Are patches in epoxy / glass over new screwheads using glass cloth over the heads and fared to the existing hull going to hold long term, or should they be avoided?

Edited to acknowledge I was probably getting ahead of myself and making too much work for myself. I'll just have to chalk the compromises in room up as a lesson learned. The closer I looked, the more I'd have to redo ... and I don't really want to go there.

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