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Advice and online source for plastic/fiberglas console for 1971 Eastport 16'?
Last weekend, the console on my 1971 Eastport broke almost entirely free from the deck. Although I absolutely love the original wood on the boat, the console has essentially started coming apart and I cannot pretend that I'll be able to restore it quickly (time- and woodworking-talent -wise).
I'd like to get a relatively inexpensive plastic/fiberglas console that I can use while I figure out a strategy for the wooden console.
I see some consoles online but they look like they're extruded from a single sheet of plastic and I'd lose all the storage, which would doubly stink because that's where we've kept the fuel tank.
* Any suggestions?
* Any good online sources (an additional challenge is that I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, so local resources don't have a lot of variety)?
* Is a replacement going to be so expensive and difficult that I should just suck it up until I can get the wooden console rebuilt (which, by how little free time I have, will be a year)?
Yeah, that’s the type of console I’ve been wondering about. That particular one won’t ship to Hawaii, but there are similar ones I can order. AFAICT there’s very little storage and obviously the fuel tank won’t fit in that little cutout. I’d love to hear someone say “Oh, here’s this great one with interior shelves and a bench up front with a lid.”
lobrien: I have replaced many consoles on my Boston Whaler 16 "blue hull" boats over the years. Whatever console you choose to install, be mindful of the fact that your 1971 smirkless 16 hull has two 4 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick pieces of plywood set 32 inches apart on center that represent the substrate material below the non-skid deck where a console can be fastened. If you purchase a fiberglass console that is only 20 inches wide, for example, you will have to modify the base of the new console with a piece of plywood cut @34 inches wide in order to fasten it securely to the deck. That would mean you have a piece of raised wood on your cockpit deck. Take a look at the wood locating diagram for your 16 hull, available in the downloads section of this site. If the original console base and floor cleats on your boat are what need repair, you can order a new base and new solid mahogany cleats for a few hundred dollars from independent Boston Whaler wood parts craftsman, Robert Latourelle, in Haverhill, Ma., and he can ship the parts to you. That would be your most economical option for fixing the original wood console.
