Re: closed to open bow conversion
The ribs or whatever spans gunwale to gunwale, at the beam on your boat helps to hold the sides of the boat inplace.....like the celiing joists hold the roof rafters in place on a house.
You will have to deal with this somehow. One way is to add rt angle braces at the intersection of the side and floor ribs, if you have a boat that has exposed ribs. On open constructed aluminum boats they have extruded parts or stamped parts that support the sides by their design; the floor's ribs curve up and make the side ribs. Fiberglas boats sometimes use the inner lining to do it.
I'd suggest a thourough investigation of boats, of your type construction, which are open bow and investigate how they handle this before you get the saw out.
Other than that, I personally see no problem it removing it.
Mark
