My thoughts on an 11-footer restoration and customizing

[gccch]

For a while now I have owned an 11-footer that I have been considering restoring and customizing. I only have access to this boat once or twice a year for a few days. In May 2022 I was able to finally refinish the thwart seat and replace the risers that hold the thwart seat in place. I also may try a new steering and engine control arrangement. I may mount the steering in the front corner. It seems like it would fit the cable length. Then I could sit on the bench. Previously I had it mounted to the bench and the operator would sit on the rear-most surface.

I would consider mounting some actual seats, but not sure what would work.Finding some bolt-in seats and console would be great. I don't want to put a bunch of holes in the boat unless I'm sure it will be permanent. The boat is in reasonably decent original condition and I don't want to destroy its character.

[Deleted bad link, presumably to some image that would illustrate something]

[jimh]

In general, classic Boston Whaler boats have rather unique and high-utility in their designs. The notion that the design of the boat can be improved is often presented but seldom realized.

One exception is thwart seats on the 15-footer. The 15-footer turned out to be such an exceptionally great small boat that people would be happy to run around in it for hours in all kinds of conditions. The thwart seats were just not sufficiently comfortable for hours and hours of boating. The result is that many, many 15-footer have modified seating.

However, on an 11-footer that only gets used two or three days each year, I don't think there is an imperative to redo the entire interior design of the boat. I believe this may be why you have only been thinking about this project for some time now.

Of course, it's your boat so go your own way. But what suits your taste may not earn approbation from other Boston Whaler classicists.

If you actually get around to accomplishing the modifications you have been thinking about, you should return to THE GAM and show us your work in a new thread. It is always best to demonstrate what has been accomplished than to speculate about what might be accomplished in the future.

[gccch]

Thanks jimh, I appreciate your input. And I do appreciate the simple nature of the 11-foot Boston Whaler boat. You seem to have well understood my situation and mindset.

The steering and controls on my 11-footerhave were fitted long ago from a prior owner and not to my satisfaction. They were awkwardly fitted and seem to get in the way. I'm more likely to just use the tiller handle unless I can come up with something that fits the boat.

The modern Boston Whaler boats give me the idea there could be more comfort and utility brought into a classic 11-footer designed as a tender. I'm looking for ideas.

Maybe the forum on continuousWave is the wrong place to look for ideas.

ASIDE: the link I included was supposed to bring you to a google hosted picture of the boat with the steering idea I mentioned.

Thanks again.

[jimh]

Without being able to see the boat you have now or the boat you want to modify your boat to look like, to understand exactly how your 11-footer has been rigged that is not satisfactory to you is going to be very difficult for me to learn.

I am reading between the lines of what you have said so far, and I get the idea that perhaps the boat you have was originally produced as the 11 TENDER model, not the 11 SPORT model. The 11 TENDER would not have a console with a steering wheel and remote engine controls for electric starting, shift, throttle, and trim. The 11 SPORT would have all that added rigging.

If you want to modify your boat to be in the configuration of an 11 SPORT model, you just need to find some good photographs of an 11 SPORT. I just did a search images with the argument Boston Whaler 11 SPORT. Here is what I found:

https://www.google.com/search?q=images+ ... r+11+SPORT

[jimh]

Maybe the forum on continuousWave is the wrong place to look for ideas.

No, there is nothing wrong with posting to the forum at CONTINUOUSWAVE.COM and asking people to give you their advice on how a 11-footer can be rigged to have a helm console, a steering wheel, engine remote controls, seat backs, and whatever else it is that you want to add to your boat. You just have to ask them about those specific areas of advice. In your initial post you did not explicitly solicit any advice from readers. To get readers to respond as you want, just tell the readers what response from them you would like to elicit.

ASIDE: the link I included was supposed to bring you to a google hosted picture of the boat with the steering idea I mentioned.

Yes, I indicated that there was a link but I removed it because it did not produce any results. If you post a link and think it points to something useful, a good way to test that is to return to the post as a reader of the post and click on the link. That is how I discovered that the link went nowhere. That is how HTML works. If there is a URL, then when you clink on that link you are taken to the URL. No matter what is SUPPOSED to be at that URL, what you get when you go there will be whatever actually is at that URL. In the case of the link you posted there was nothing there. That is why I removed the link. There is no point in giving people a URL to visit when there is nothing at the URL.

You need to make more clear these three elements:
--how your boat is rigged now and what you do not like about it, and use an illustrating photographs so readers can see how your boat is actually rigged now
--how you want the boat to be rigged to meet your expectations, perhaps illustrated by a different boat that you like; show a photograph of that boat that represents your goal for the modification of your boat; and,
--exactly what elements of converting your boat into the new rigging you want to get advice on; there are many elements to modifying a boat, such as fiberglass work, wood work, engine rigging, electrical wiring, remote control installation, fuel tanks, and so on. Readers don't know what areas you need advice about, Let readers know.

The best place to get advice about making repairs or modifications is to post to the forum whose TOPIC is REPAIRS and MODIFICATIONS. If you do post there, please limit the topic to just one aspect of the modification at a time. Threads which seek advice on three or four or five or ten topics at once have very little cohesion and information value.

Also, many topics of repairs and modifications have already been discussed in many threads, so doing a search before you start a new thread on an old topic is advised.