Installing captain chairs

[martys]

I want to remove the lounge seats from my boat and install captain chairs. This is my first time installing the base for the chairs. What is the best way of securing the base to the fiberglass floor?

 

[bayman]

Re: Installing captain chairs

Martys, are we to assume that the seats are installed outside and thus not going to be protected from the weather and elements. That can be a big factor in what measures are taken when installing the chairs properly.<br /><br />I recommend this article when installing hardware such as this:<br /> http://www.yachtsurvey.com/hardware_attachments.htm

 

[swist]

Re: Installing captain chairs

Captains' chairs can be difficult to install - the moment generated by the weight of a person at the end of a pedestal causes a lot of force at the mounting bolts.<br /><br />1) They have to be through-bolted through a large backing plate of heavy plywood or metal with large scale quality fasteners. If you can't get to the underside of the deck at that location, forget it.<br /><br />2) Some boat decks are thin to begin with on elcheapo brands, or have become soft over time with water incursion. Regardless of backing plates etc, you can still rip a pedestal chair out if the deck is not solid/sound.<br /><br />An alternative if it can't be mounted properly is to use the kind that come with a storage box below. This gives you a much larger contact area with the deck. And the bending moment is much shorter (and presumably properly addressed by the manufacturer since the pedestal mounts to their own box).

 

[Bondo]

Re: Installing captain chairs

And,<br />Make SURE it's the Floor,+ Not the Hull you'll be Drilling though...............

 

[18rabbit]

Re: Installing captain chairs

Fwiw, when we ripped out the floor in the cabin, the capt’s chair pedestal was thru-bolted to a heavy-duty aluminum frame welded into the floor’s sub-structure. A similar chair (called the ‘mission’ chair) had the pedestal welded to 1/4-in boilerplate that was about 2-ft sq. The boilerplate was bolted in several places thru the floor with 3/8-in bolts. That sob was heavy to move!!! There were a couple of those 6-in, round deck ports in the floor that didn’t make any sense. I think they may have been cut in so someone could reach in under the floor to get access to put in the bolts for the mission chair. There would have been no way to remove/replace/install the capt’s chair without ripping into the floor.

 

[swist]

Re: Installing captain chairs

The math is easy - I weigh 200 lbs. If the pedestal is 3 ft long, that can be as much 600 ft lbs of torque on the fastening system if I shift my weight suddenly sideways.<br /><br />It's one of the reasons you don't see pedestal-mounted seats on very inexpensive boats. CRRRRAAAAACK......

 

[ae708]

Re: Installing captain chairs

Sure wish you lived near me.. I'd love to swap out my captain's chairs for folddown lounge seats. Ain't life funny?

 

[TwoBallScrewBall]

Re: Installing captain chairs

Best way to do it as mentioned is to build a strong box frame, maybe 1 to 1.5 feet high, and then attach the chairs to that. Keeps the pole short, and you have all the access in the world to get to the bottom of the mounting bolts. Plus you get a nice pair of storage areas too.