Question:
I am trying to find plans, or ideas about buying or building a center
console for my G3 17ft 56 inch wide aluminum boat. Yes, Aluminum. I
have to have a aluminum boat because I take it four miles offshore and
drive it into granite boulders while unloading people and equipment at a
lighthouse. While the Gulf tries to knock the bottom out of it. One day
I hope I can get one of those plastic boats to try.
I also take a safety boat along so that when I hole it we can get a ride
home. look at www.sandislandlighthouse.com to see the lighthouse we are
working at and you can see what I am talking about.
Anyway this is our third boat and I want to put a console in it. I also
need to install a floor
Answer:
-What's a G3? Light gauge aluminum? Consider a heavy (3/16") welded boat,
with UHMW plastic sheathing on the bottom. With a custom boat, you can
build in redundancies to make holing a non-issue.
Also, if you're serious about a lighthouse project, you may want to work on
some kind of landing facility first. This can be as simple as two wooden
rails (again, with UHMW for slipperiness) that you can drive the boat up on.
Or, some folks at Seguin lighthouse in Maine had a 20' fiberglass boat built
with extra reinforcing under the transom. They tilt the motor up some, back
into the cobble beach, unload, then put it on a mooring and paddle in on a
little kayak carried on deck.
Getchell's "The Outboard Boaters Handbook" has some good advice on
alternatives to a console, IIRC. Along the lines of grab rails across in
front of the helmsman (with a long tiller extension) and down the centerline
for passengers.
-Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyolefin (you can see why it got shortened). You
should be able to find a supplier like Accurate Plastics online,. I know this
question has come up before, so you could google-search the archives, or I'm
sure someone out there remembers.
