Some of my projects..

Nothing too extravagant here, but these are a few of my mini-projects that I fit into the long winter between buying the boat and getting it wet for the first time.

One project that I don't have pictures of is that I completely re-wired the switch/breaker panel. The switches were starting to show some signs of corrosion, so I replaced them with illuminated paddle switches. This also motivated me to generate a complete wiring diagram for the boat, so that I knew what every wire in the console did and where it went. This was a lot of work, but I'm sure it will pay off the first time I need to troubleshoot a problem.

I also installed a couple of strips of LEDs under the gunnels.. one set of red and one set of white, but found that I didn't use them too much throughout the season. Most of my fishing is early mornings and they weren't necessary.. but they worked really well.

The first project I can show here was replacing the existing fuel/water separator with a stainless base and Racor filter with the see-through bowl on the bottom. I picked up this combo from www.foreandaftmarine.com.

The old Quicksilver mount was literally crumbling as I removed it.

Note that the water showing on the new Racor is due to my hosing everything down in the bilge prior to taking that picture.. thats not normal

-- Tom

The next minor project was to find the best way to improve the fly rod storage on the boat, since I flyfish for Stripers about 90% of the time.

I looked at a bunch of different options here, trying to maximize the number of rigged fly rods I could store under the gunnels and out of the way. I came across a user on Tidalfish who had posted a picture of his 18' Parker, emailed him for details and came up with something based on his idea.

The problem with under-gunnel fly rod storage is that the fuel filler gets in the way on the port side, limiting fly rods to the starboard side.

The design I copied from Tidalfish was to build a starboard mount to offset the rear rod holder back as far as possible. This keeps the tips of the fly rods from rubbing against the side of the boat while underway.

If you do something similar, you want to get the rod holders mounted as high up on the gunnel as possible, but leaving plenty of room to clear the rod holder tubes. I really didn't want my fly rods scraping against the bottom of the rod holder while underway or as I inserted/removed the rods.

The design worked out great and I was surprised at how sturdy it was, doing double duty holding my heavy spinning setup for tuna in the fall.

-- Tom

Another simple project was a combination fly rod / boga grip / pliers holder that I made out of starboard.

A friend of mine gave me one of the I-Fly rod holders, and I had the starboard left over from the previous project, so I decided to put them to good use. I purchased a second I-Fly rod holder and used a piece of PVC pipe I had lying around to create a boga grip holder. I drew everything out on the PC first to make sure it looked right and everything was spaced correctly, then threw it together.

The middle I-Fly rod holder is secured with stainless screws through the back of the starboard base and the top and bottom starboard rails. The outside I-Fly rod holder and the boga tube are secured via the mounting bolts that go through the console and hold everything together.

-- Tom

What did you build the under gunwale rod racks out of? I am curious as to what that material is....

Got a scrap piece of starboard on eBay.

-- Tom

i would like to see pics of your galley sometime, thx