Converting to a open bow

[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by bksah2

Hi all,,, looking for a little more space for passangers especially kids and was thinking this winter of converting the closed bow to an open bow ...The boat runs great its a 1989 with the 200hp yamaha ,, and i hate to get rid of it.. though of looking around for a CC,, open bow but then I would have to start hitting the forsale market and all the BULL that goes with it ..I would much rather keep my boat that i know is solid and have myself or a fiberglass guy do the work... with the way the Vs cuddys are set up it don,t look like that hard to convert WHAT DO YOU THINK ...

Two things...:

1) I think that hitting the forsale market is a lot less stressful and time consuming than trying to cut off the bow of a cuddy. Unless you're a fiberglass expert (and few of us are) than I think that the resultant mess will be far from what you planned. Maybe you can do it or find someone that can, but in the end you'll still have a boat that looks like a cuddy with the front cut off.

2) I think that Wellcraft wondered about the same thing ... so they paid a lot of people (designers, moldmakers, fiberglass experts, etc.) to come up with a way to accomplish it. The result was the dual console V20. If you look at one (Look at Lumberslingers posts) you can see that they moved the consoles way back to allow for more room at the front for more comfort. There's NOT a lot of room in the cuddy you know, so not sure how you would accomplish the same thing.

BOTTOM LINE.. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Look for a dual console model. Chances are that you'll find one for just about the price that you can sell your boat for. Let the experts do the work. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but you did ask for our opinion...this is mine. cheers