Mutinous_Scallywag
Cadet
- Joined
- May 5, 2021
- Messages
- 7
Hey, first post here. Last year I bought a used cabin cruiser, a Bayliner 2855 to be exact. It came with an aluminum floor raft and 6 hp Mercury as a tender, but I decided very quickly that wasn't going to work for us. They both weighed a ton, and were cumbersome as hell to move around. The thought of putting that thing together while at anchor was hellish, so I sold them and bought an Intex Mariner 3 with Newport Vessels trolling motor.
I've used it for its intended purpose once so far, last year. The entire thing fits into an aft storage locker, except the battery box, and putting it together took maybe 30 minutes with a hand pump and fiddling with the motor mount screws. I've since bought an electric pump to speed things along.
Anyway, the ideal situation would be to leave the roll-up floor in the raft when it's deflated, so I can just un-roll the raft when needed and put air in it, then off I go. Unfortunately the locker door isn't wide enough to accommodate that. I can fit the raft and the floor in there separately, but not assembled.
There isn't that much space on the aft deck to be fussing around with a 9 foot raft. It really would be easier if I could just pull it out of storage, inflate it, and let it extend out the back of the boat until I'm ready to shove it in the water. Any thoughts on how I could simplify this?
On a side note, the inflatable seats, while perfectly comfortable, have that old-fashioned kiddie water wing inflation nozzle that you have to push down into itself after it's inflated. Last time I needed a pair of pliers to get it back out again, and I know it's going to break eventually. Any ideas for that?
Thanks!
I've used it for its intended purpose once so far, last year. The entire thing fits into an aft storage locker, except the battery box, and putting it together took maybe 30 minutes with a hand pump and fiddling with the motor mount screws. I've since bought an electric pump to speed things along.
Anyway, the ideal situation would be to leave the roll-up floor in the raft when it's deflated, so I can just un-roll the raft when needed and put air in it, then off I go. Unfortunately the locker door isn't wide enough to accommodate that. I can fit the raft and the floor in there separately, but not assembled.
There isn't that much space on the aft deck to be fussing around with a 9 foot raft. It really would be easier if I could just pull it out of storage, inflate it, and let it extend out the back of the boat until I'm ready to shove it in the water. Any thoughts on how I could simplify this?
On a side note, the inflatable seats, while perfectly comfortable, have that old-fashioned kiddie water wing inflation nozzle that you have to push down into itself after it's inflated. Last time I needed a pair of pliers to get it back out again, and I know it's going to break eventually. Any ideas for that?
Thanks!