Pilothouse Floor Covering Trial

[Bruce]

Porkchunker, Stonebuster, and Cbigma: you all have a point. I haven't even begun to have half the fun the Parker is designed for. I just haven't had it long enough, yet. When I start catching fish, I may change my mind on the floor covering and try some of the other project I read about on this site.

I spent the winter straightening my tackel box and putting new line on the reels. I am ready; I hope the fish are.

 

[fourports]

I have installed a rubber backed bathroom mat from Target. It is made to get wet so while I use my boat for family the carpet feels good under foot and if I am fishing and it gets dirty I simply pull it out, hose it off, hang it over my rails until it drys and stick it back. I have no regrets and it helps keep noise from bouncing around and items from sliding on the floor. about 50 bucks.

 

[TimC2520]

Here is what I got for my helm, everyone else in the cabin is on their own :mrgreen:


http://www.seadekstore.com/index.asp?Pa ... &ProdID=13

 

[J.A. Veil]

Although I have a center console rather than a pilothouse style boat, I have looked at flooring for the area between the console and the leaning post. My feet do not take a pounding very well, so I purchased a 3' x 3' red rubber mat at Sam's Club. This is meant for industrial usage, like commercial kitchens, and has holes to allow easy drainage. I cut the mat in half and stacked one piece on top of the other. I used this for one full season. It helped absorb some of the shock, but not as much as I preferred. The following winter, I was in Home Depot and wandered through the floor mat department. I found a particularly thick dense foam kitchen mat that was close to the right size. After a bit of trimming, I was able to lay it on top of the rubber mats for extra cushioning.

The only problem with this arrangement is that I am 6" 4" tall, and the extra thickness causes my eyes to be above the windshield railing, so I take a bit of spray on my sunglasses at times. Another benefit of having the soft foam mat is that if I have a lot of passengers, they tend to sit on top of a big Igloo cooler in the bow area. I can lay the mat on top of the cooler for additional padding.

 

[cbigma]

OK. My trial of this particular cabin floor material is officially over.

Warning! If your cabin floor (or wherever you use it onboard) gets wet, really wet, do NOT use this material.

Unless you completely dry out the floor and foam after each use.


The closed cell foam flooring worked great for us the first few weekends; a couple of divers with a day or two between trips. Once the long holiday weekend brought multiple divers and multiple days, we got into trouble.

By the end of the third day, we had many pairs of wet feet sloshing in and out of the cabin. The top of the foam floor dried off almost instantly, but I wasnt keeping an eye on the thin layer of water that was building up and not drying out underneath the foam. My mistake. :roll:

On Monday evening I stepped down into the pilothouse and Surf's Up! :shock: :shock:

I was hanging ten on the little square foam widowmaker speeding in toward the V-berth while my neck and head were dropping back down toward the doorframe.

If it weren't for the Admiral's Seat (port pedastal with storage) I would be writing this from a Hospital bed.

I didn't pay attention the part of Porkchunker's post (above) where he said he picked his foam flooring up to dry each night.

The closed cell does not absorb water, dries quickly (on the top) and will float nicely on just a teeny tiny film of water. Probably no more than a cup of water across the entire cabin floor.

So now I am back to the standard Home Depot 3X5 outdoor mat. Oh well. That's what trials are for. I'm gonna miss the cushy foam under my barefeet, and the foam cut down on noise a lot, but our cabin floor just gets too wet to use this closed-cell foam stuff. Your mileage may vary. 8)

 

[boondoggle]

This stuff is called hydro-turf and is primarily used on jet skis. It doesn't absorb water or freeze (my waders don't freeze to the deck now) and is cool on the feet. I was going for max coverage during the install so it ain't purty. The downside for users here is that it uses a 3M adhesive backing to stay in place.