Finally completing a few mods, including seating

Well, I bought my 2320 in March of 2015 and although it was in good shape there were several things I wanted to change after spending weeks/months reading this forum. Because of others help on here I successfully changed all thru hull fittings over to stainless, redid the non-skid (however plan to redo again soon as I don't like how it turned out), added a new larger hatch in pilothouse with a storage basket attached, and am in the process of adding some new electronics. Mainly however, I spent most of the winter and spring slowly pecking away at completing the seating in the pilot house. Now I know everyone has different opinions on what they like, and all for good reasons. But to me, I needed a little bit more seating and more importantly some storage. So, I built a bench seat for the port side and a chair for leaning and sitting/storage at the helm. I want to emphasize, I am no where near as talented as many others on here, but those guys were inspirational to me building mine.

The bench seat was built with basically one piece of nice 3/4" birch plywood and teak drawers I bought from a cool site (sailors-exchange.com). I probably have a total off $200 in the structure (paint, epoxy, stainless hardware etc) and another $350 for the seat (overtons).

The helm seat was actually about the same but the seat about $300. So a total of about $1050. Not too bad and much cheaper than buying anything already done. Anyway, here's a few pics of bench seat the best angles I could get. The pics of the helm show the seat as a leaning post, regular seat, and facing backwards when we are anchored up, overall pretty happy with the seat.

Anyway, this is inside my 2320 -

Man!! don't beat yourself up, that is a great looking job, be proud of it

Nice job MadGar. That looks great and very functional. I personally like the bench seats on the port side on the 21/2320's. Although not great for pounding offshore, they do well hanging out at the dock/island/beach and calmer waters. Everything is a trade off. Your fabricating skills look pretty good to me. Hope you get lots of chances to enjoy your new set up this season.

That looks really sweat, congrats. How much has it increased the fish catching?

Hotpursuit, thanks for the kind words, I am happy with the final outcome and look forward to using it.
Your post on the heater buddy and your help with the planer board connection will make this upcoming fall season much more comfortable, thx.

Shawnee, appreciate the comments and I am sure it wouldn't be ideal for offshore however, all my boating is in the potomac River and chesapeake bay, far from the ocean. I would love to try offshore but probably never will in my boat. I truly one day want to try offshore fishing though. I, however, basically spend the majority of my time in this boat trolling in early spring and fall/winter with a couple guys for rockfish (stripers). Really they just needed a cushion and cup holders I would imagine offshore they would get beat up pretty bad. The leaning seat is my favorite though. I actually had that seat on the pedestal last season, it fits perfectly to the original seat base.

John, thanks for the complement. Sadly, my boat hasn't seen the water yet this season cause I had no seats :shock: until I finalized the install this weekend. Stupidly I took out both seats over the winter knowing I would be done with the mod for opening season of rockfish, unfortunately I also coach youth travel soccer and my plan got pushed back about 2 months . I don't know if it will actually help me catch more but my company should be more comfortable trying.

To be quite honest though, I have really enjoyed learning a lot about the boat and making it my own.
Thanks guys

Awesome man! Custom job: never seen anything like it before. I am impressed (am not usually easily impressed…).

MAD PROPS!!

Wow, great looking interior. The time you spent on it shows.

Looks VERY nice..... Especially like the added wood detail around the top edge of the double seat.... that add's a Lot.

Love that helm seat.
I'd like a pair of them for my boat.

Great job. Looks like with the helm seat spun to the stern it becomes a leaning post, which would be awesome

The helm seat looks so comfortable I'd be afraid I'll fall asleep at the wheel. :mrgreen:

Hey guys, I really do appreciate all the nice comments. It is even much more rewarding when fellow parker owners like your ideas and efforts. Funny thing is, most of you that commented are the ones that have inspired me (and taught me) to come up with my plan of attack and how to complete most of my projects (including x-shark ). I still have many more to do but now actually look forward to them. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to use the boat but honestly, I'm really enjoying learning through all these small changes, sounds weird I know :roll: .

Megabyte, I admit I was thinking of you at times when I built the helm seat because you have the open back and you have said numerous times, you would like to have a leaning post at the helm and you would like to have access to tackle from the back side. I came real close to putting one of those teak hatches on the back to have access inside the storage, I still might and it would only cost about another $30. Also, that seat works real well as a leaning post as seen in the 4th picture. By the way, the seat connects very easily to the stock pedestal. Might fit your needs.

Lucky John, actually as I said to megabyte, look at pic 4. If you are interested in a leaning post the seat easily converts without spinning around. Also, the picture you referred to the back is just pulled forward, no need to spin around. Maybe that would be useful for you.

Also, these seats are made by SPRINGFIELD and they have some good prices on slightly blemished items on their website. Sometimes I have seen this seat there but unfortunately that was after I paid retail at overtons

what hatch did you use with storage basket?

thanks!

This the one I used, it was on sale when I bought it and several places have it. I took out the small round plate in the cabin and replaced with this. Gives a little more storage but more importantly much easier access to the cabin bilge area. I didn't show a great picture and will try later but I think you can see it in pic 1. Hope it helps

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/product ... gi?i=16292