Maggieiscrazy
Well-Known Member
I’ve spent lots of time on Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. The worst wave I ever took over my bow was on the St Croix River.
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Why would you want to go out into water where a wave could come over the bow and take your tonneau cover out and your solution is to use plywood ?...I have a nice canvas snap on cover now. Suppose I removed the screws holding in the snaps, drilled holes, and inserted well nuts. The snaps could go back in, retained by machine screws. Longer machine screws could hold the painted piece of plywood on in the unlikely event I decided to put this lake boat into salt water. Be great to hear from someone who has actually done it.
My first boat was a new 200 Select bowrider. I tried running that boat around on Lake Superior a few times. I had purchased it in August '03, I ordered a different boat in September of '03.
If you just gotta....how about adding more snaps to help keep your current bow canvas on. Also modify your bow canvas if need be to accommodate a couple more canvas support poles to help hold the convex shape and shed water. With my second boat, 270 Sundeck, I found repetitive waves crashing over the bow would collapse the support pole. The canvas then became a concave surface that funneled a lot of water through the walkthru and into the boat. I learned that in a bad storm, actually opened the transom door to let the water out faster. That was the last trip with that boat.
Just thinking....what if the plywood comes loose and breaks the windshield glass...big bucks then...maybe a totaled out boat.Why would you want to go out into water where a wave could come over the bow and take your tonneau cover out and your solution is to use plywood ?...
if you could stop the water from taking the plywood out it’s coming over the windshield...now what ?
Its just not suited for big water / waves without risking sinking. Calm day and forecast maybe, but then you don't need the plywood. The plywood won't help much. It will just give a bow stuff wave faster track to the stern of the boat that might actually sink you faster. A small bowrider has no scuppers to get that water out. That huge weight will be on the deck until it drains to the bilge and then that little itty bitty bilge pump will have to pump it out. The problem with many lake bowriders is that the bow is too low, not that it is open. That is why the new larger bowriders coming out that are more suited for open water don't have those low bows.
^^^^^Put your money into a high flow second bilge pump and additional snaps and reinforce the canvas under the tent pole.
+1I think you are going to do this, you need to go full tilt with it - not just halfway. I'm thinking along the same lines of what Woody mentioned -- plus, there's a possibility that if not's 100% secured that it rips off and hits someone inside the boat. The problem with this, then, is that you have to secure it so well, that it means you are likely "re-modeling" the bow area of the boat to the point where it could make the boat hard to sell.
And, of course, logically speaking, this brings us back to the points above of just buying the proper boat for your needs rather than hacking up a perfectly good bowrider. Take a look at the 215/225 models from Sea Ray from the late 90's to the mid-2000's. That should work much better for you.