Pulling the trigger on a pilot house on the 228

[mjm1957]

Came out great. Make sure you put your new registration sticker on before Friday.

 

[Ryhlick]

looks amazing, out of curiosity are you going to install windshield wipers on her?

 

[luckydude]

looks amazing, out of curiosity are you going to install windshield wipers on her?

Yes. Miguel said that the wiper motors are adjustable so I should be able to use the motors I have. Anyone know if that is true?
But one way or another, there will be wipers. Ideally I'd find some where they have the magic that keeps the blade vertical and I can wipe the entire window, but if not, I'll settle for the triangle of wipe.

 

[glacierbaze]

To wipe the entire window with a vertical blade, you need two arms for each blade, and a pivoting blade. Look at #6 in the link. Your windows are narrow enough that you could get away with one per window.

https://www.a1-windscreens.co.uk/news/windscreen-wiper-movements/

pantograph windshield wiper arms - Google Search

Looks like some have one drive arm, and the other is anchored, and some look like both arms are attached to motor drives.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pantograph+windshield+wiper

 

[Fishtales]

Man that looks sweet. The paint and windows really makes it look complete and stock. Nice work.

 

[luckydude]

Well folks, just back from a day of fishing and I could not be happier with my new pilot house. The visibility was what I wanted and that is what I got. I pushed Charlie to give me the biggest windows possible and I am so glad I did. You feel like you have a 180 degree view. It's fantastic!

I was worried that the rear of the sidewalls were not far enough back, worried about protection from the wind. I over thought it, it was absolutely fine, I'd have no problem encouraging someone to steal my design.

I was mentally prepared to suck it up and deal with what I didn't like. Over thought that as well, so far as I can tell, this pilot house is perfect.
I would 100% do it again.

At around $22K, it's perhaps not for everyone. I've added up all money I've put into my 228, $130K for boat and trailer, $2K to switch the trailer to electric over hydraulic, $3K for a kicker, a big pile for 2 screens, 2 GPS receivers, AIS, radar, and auto pilot, and $22K for the pilot house. It all comes to around $175K. Crazy, right? Except that Grady wants $167K for the 218, which, no offense to 218 owners, it's no replacement for a 228, the 228 is a way better fishing platform. When you compare to the 218, remember that $167K price doesn't have kicker, electronics, pilot house, my investment doesn't look bat shit crazy.

It is a crazy amount of money, but as someone once said, I'm in the last quarter of the game of my life and I want to enjoy it. It's worth it to me, I completely understand that some (most?) people will think I'm crazy.

 

[glacierbaze]

You have certainly added your personal touches, and ended up with a great result, but am I wrong in thinking that you are not the first with the basic package? Weren't there 2 or 3 ahead of you? I ask because I am wondering if someone owns the CAD design files, and could they be purchased.
I don't think we ever saw anything prior to a fully formed shell, minus the roof, so was the pilot house cut out from a single sheet of aluminum, and bent rather than welded?

Did anyone ride up top today?

 

[luckydude]

You have certainly added your personal touches, and ended up with a great result, but am I wrong in thinking that you are not the first with the basic package? Weren't there 2 or 3 ahead of you? I ask because I am wondering if someone owns the CAD design files, and could they be purchased.
I don't think we ever saw anything prior to a fully formed shell, minus the roof, so was the pilot house cut out from a single sheet of aluminum, and bent rather than welded?

Did anyone ride up top today?

Nobody was up top today. That's for chasing tuna and I suspect my tired 62 year old ass will get up there before I say that is a younger person's job.

Charlie Hicks did the fab and this is one of many that he has done. He has cad stuff. I pushed him on the windows (I wanted bigger), I and Peter showed him the curved rear that looks awesome and got him to do that, I pushed him the roof line, he wanted it slanted, I wanted it like the hard top.

So the idea of a pilot house is well ahead of me. Charlie has done a bunch of those. What is cool, to me, about my pilot house is I wanted a bunch of stuff, got it, and then had it actually work at sea. It could have gone very wrong, I pushed for a bunch of stuff but Charlie pushed back when I went too far and the result is fantastic. If you are west coast, I can't say enough good things about Charlie Hicks.

My opinion is all over that pilot house but Charlie made it work. It was a group effort.

 

[glacierbaze]

Very happy for you! Getting what you want, and having it exceed expectations has to be really gratifying.

 

[JeffN]

Looks Great Grady should make a similar model

 

[luckydude]

Looks Great Grady should make a similar model

I couldn't agree more (duh). Grady doesn't seem that interested in colder weather boats, sadly.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

As mentioned in the other thread, as well as confirmed online... for a brand new Grady White 218 Adventure, the hardtop option alone is $13,255 for the invoice price and $18,935 for MSRP. Then it's an extra $1,050 on the invoice price to have the hardtop paint matched as well as four rod holders, which equates to $1,500 MSRP. I imagine GW gets a huge markup price on their hardtop and that's why they charge what they do, because people will buy them. In your particular case, I don't imagine it'll be cost or time effective when you've got more than $15k into something and then need to sell it for considerably more just to break even or make money on the item. On top of that, I imagine the hardtop from GW is likely all assembled and it takes a very minimal amount of time or effort to install on the boat itself. Compared to something like your pilothouse where the fabricator has what I'm guessing must be over a dozen, or maybe multiple dozens of hours of work into it at this point? For a "production boat", it doesn't make sense to me for the manufacturer to spend that much time and/or money on something, and would likely eat into their profits and time considerably. Now, if it was a custom boat from the ground up, that would very much likely be a different situation. I know Grant Wooldridge, a guy here in Seattle that manufacturers and sells Wooldridge boats, of which pretty much anything on the boat is customizable because it's going to be a 5-6 month build at the minimum to begin with. Of which I can't imagine that it takes anywhere near that long to build a single GW from start to finish, though I could definitely be wrong.

 

[Fishtales]

Yea, this was a journey for you. Congrats. If you find the time, take a complete set of pic (all sides, inside and out) to document this. Great project!

 

[Legend]

A picture, more at

http://mcvoy.com/lm/228-pilot/index.html

The whole point was to get better visibility and, I think, mission accomplished.

View attachment 33589

Really amazing work - redefines the whole look of the boat - nice work!

 

[Halfhitch]

Lucky, Since you went first cabin with that tremendous upgrade, I'm sure you will want a wiper system to match. If you want to be the coolest kid on the block, you could go with straight line wipers like the big boats do.
https://www.kent-marine.com/en/1662/wynn-marine-straight-line-wipers.html

If you want to stay with the more common pantograph design, this outfit has some good quality stuff to continue your level of excellence on this project. Both of these outfits have washer systems to go along with the wipers. A necessity in saltwater.
https://www.imtra.com/products/wipers

 

[efx]

Your boat is awesome. Grady ride with Parker 2320 wind protection. You have a winner there. Enjoy it.

 

[luckydude]

Back from the second trip with the new pilot house. 3 limits of ling cod, I got the biggest - 30 inches. Not huge but a good eating fish. Great day on the water.

I realized I lied about the price, it was more like $24K, I forgot the windows. So not for everyone, probably not for most people, but I'm super happy I did it. Why? Because I have what I think is the best 22 foot fishing boat money can buy. If I were to start from scratch today I don't know what I could buy that would be better. Or as good. It's been worth it for me just so I stay committed to this boat (I'm the guy that was gonna buy a new Marlin). I really enjoy that I can park the boat in my driveway at the end of 1.5 mile single lane twisty mountain road.

We were out there and I was in the cockpit and you just look forward and it's a 180 degree view. Fantastic.

This is the boat for me. I could be wrong, but I will bet you 100 to 1 odds I never upgrade.

And Grady should have offered this as an option. I was joking around that the boat needs an offset blue stripe and we call it the 228 GT.
Stripe aside, we think if Grady had offered this they would be up and down the west coast. It's perfect for the Pacific.

 

[Fishtales]

Very nice. You are indeed a luckydude.

 

[luckydude]

One other comment. Charlie built a little tower for my radar and tilted it forward a bit. Huge difference, I see kayakers now. Before, I couldn't see 17 foot whalers.

If you don't have your radar angled down towards the bow a bit, try wedging it and see if it works better. I have the 18 inch Garmin Fantom.