No matter how good a boat looks in the brochure or in the show room you don't know the things that are wrong with its design until you actually have to drive it, fish out of it, clean it, service it or store it.
If you could get it redesigned what would you do? I am not talking about things that the designer did not design the boat for but usually little things that could improve the boat to make it perfect.
I love my boat and it does what I want it to do. It is an offshore fishing boat but has a few niggling issues that if I could change it would be better. For instance:
1. access to the batteries for inspection and servicing is terrible. The space allowed in the back of the boat and the design prevents any simple fix. The space is too small to put the batteries in boxes if I wanted to and removing the house battery requires the removal of a scewed in hatch. The batteries are slightly above deck level but taking a green wave on board would probably drown the cranking battery.
2 a floor hatch was designed without any support on the edges underneath and the floor started to flex and crack around it until I took it to a fibreglasser to fit bracing. I have looked at the latest models and the design hasn't changed.
3 the cabin door is flush with the deck and there is nothing preventing water going under the door and into the cabin where the carpet, that the manufacturer glues to the floor, gets wet takes forever to dry out and causes mildew in the cabin. This is a pain when hosing out fish guts etc and could be easily remied in design by having a lip to make it more watertight
4 the height of the bait board did not allow the outboard to tilt up fully without striking it. The outboard wasn't unusually high and a damn sight lower than some more modern motors. The problem was fixed by extending the posts for the bait board but the manufacturer could have made it right in the first place.
5. to change the globes in the port and starboard nav lights requires cutting and pulling up the cabin lining to get at the nuts holding them in place
6. the factory wiring is a dog's breakfast. Nothing like the top yank boats
7. the factory fitted electric dunny had no ball valves on the under water skin fittings. It became apparent that the dunny had been put in bfore the deck moulding and the hull were joined as the plumbing and wiring could not have been installed (or for that matter could not be removed without a series of new 'inspection hatches' being cut) after the two were joined. Very interesting out at sea and the water is coming in through the rusted out mascerator on the dunny and there were no valves. the manufacturer has claimed to me that they have never factory fitted an electric dunny but this one could only have been installed before the cabin deck was put on.
8. the frame work for the roof could have a grabrail along its length to make going forward to the bow around the outside a lot safer and easier. It is on the 'wish list' of jobs in the future but a basic design thing.
Don't get me wrong, I am not wanting to have a go at the manufacturer as I think they make an excellent product. These are little things that I would hope the manufacturer would take as a means of improving the boat. These are just the things that came to mind at the moment and I am sure if I could actually get near my boat and use it for a change that I would think of more. Hopefully this may alert people to things they hadn't considered when looking at a boat.
I am sure other Ausfishers have other matters they would like to see changed on their boats that have only been discovered by using them.
OK that's way too much one finger typing for this life time.
Rob
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Originally Posted by Chimo
Other than that, maybe;