When you say "Sunbrella bow cover," I take it you mean a snap on canvas tonneau cover. How did you reinforce it? My boat is primarily for lake use but I wanted the option of putting it in Puget Sound ("blue water"). My cover is temporary and only to be installed prior to an expedition to the San Juans. I only used existing snap holes and #8 screws with the same pitch as the snaps and made no modifications to the boat. Anchoring or beaching overnight in salt water presents a whole different set of issues although I have a locker forward of the cover. The bowrider design may have less freeboard forward than a closed bow. I think those dual outboard offshore fishing boats have sailboat style valved transom drains so you can stand it up going on the plane and all the water drains out.
Yes it’s the standard bow cover that would come with the boat and I took a triangular support plastic piece that is used for a full cover support system with straps and adapted it to fit a support pole that holds it up in the center. This supports it without damaging the fabric. There are other ways to do the same thing such as 2 transverse bows that go across underneath and fit into brackets you can buy at marine supply places. I use those for my winter cover support system.
PS
Thanks to Scott for “testing” the bow cover in all the years I’ve boated I haven’t taken a big one over the bow.
This brings up a real inadequacy of mass market consumer boats...a pitiful 500 gph single bilge pump. Upgrade this to a pair of 1100 gph units. I have a 2000 gph pump hooked up to long leads with alligator clips and a hose that I can drop in the bilge if something bad happens. I did this after a hose from the transom mount to the P/S cooler popped off and the impeller in the Cobra drive filled the bilge with salt water and of course the engine overheated leading to my top end overhaul a few years later.
Future boat requirements:
No open bows, has to be cuddy, walk around or pilot house
Self bailing hull
No more sterndrives outboard power only
Note to I/O owners: check all those hoses even the ones behind the engine you can hardly reach. I have since then every year!
first pic shows the transverse bows (fiberglass) I use to support my winter canvas cover instead of shrink wrap. The support system takes about 30 min to set up and holds up to snow & ice pretty well. These could be used to support a bow cover as well. I just use the big triangular plastic piece with a pole, for both the bow and cockpit covers. On the mooring even when it rains hard the boat hardly gets wet inside.