Upgrade seating Grand Banks 46 Europa

[bshemon1]

I have a 2003 Grand Banks Europa with the back to back seats. The visibility is poor. I was thinking of adding a Stidd helm chair with a 12" pedestal on top of the base. I believe it will fit but before ordering I am interested in any comments from owners who may have completed a seating upgrade.

 

[Comodave]

Whatever you do make sure that it is robustly attached. The leverage your weight in the seat can be quite a bit. Make sure it is well backed up.

 

[Choices]

My boat was done by the PO. Not a Stidd, but nice captains chair.

They cut a hole in the fiberglass seat top, and attached the base in the compartment underneath.

It is all removable back to stock.

From what I recall the base is on plywood attached to the runners in the cabinet.

Really nice for long days. I got a nice seat cushion off Amazon and can set there for twelve hours easy.

I need to take it apart and clean up the workmanship.

Sorry, no detail pictures.

You need to keep it low so the windshield still works for you.

 

[Mac2]

I did a similar project a couple years ago. I ended up sending everything back because it was not sturdy enough (I went cheap). As mentioned above, there is a lot of torque applied to the pedestal. Stidd makes good products, so you only need to worry about how you mount/support your chair base and the base it sits on. Also, consider a slider and/or swivel for versatility. My chair doubles as a seat to the helm table behind the chair. I also bought the pedestal that can raise and lower. This helps with matching the table height behind the chair and for shorter people who are taking over the helm watch.

Edit: Given the choice, consider not having the helm seat put together by Stidd. The chair is very heavy and it would not fit through any door, so I had to take it apart. Also, lubricate the SS bolts used for putting the chair together (any burr will make the bolt a nightmare to tighten/budge without the lube).

 

[Comodave]

My boat was done by the PO. Not a Stidd, but nice captains chair.

They cut a hole in the fiberglass seat top, and attached the base in the compartment underneath.

It is all removable back to stock.

From what I recall the base is on plywood attached to the runners in the cabinet.

Really nice for long days. I got a nice seat cushion off Amazon and can set there for twelve hours easy.

I need to take it apart and clean up the workmanship.

Sorry, no detail pictures.

You need to keep it low so the windshield still works for you.

Cutting a hole in the old seat and running the pedestal down through the old seat with the pedestal mount down at the bottom of the old seat is a great idea. If the hole is cut to size it will take a lot of the side to side load which will help out in making the seat secure.

 

[Choices]

I assume this is on the bridge. Might find pictures on my blog, grandbankschoices. Won't be back to boat for several months.

 

[koliver]

My boat came to me with a captain's chair mounted in the typical aluminum base, in turn secured to the deck between the molded seats with a 12"x16" x 2.5" lump of wood secured to the deck with a dozen lag screws. The chair was secure in conditions that were too much motion for staying up top. There was no side attachment to the molded seating, as the support was separated from the molded seats by several inches, to leave its sole attachment that to the wooden base.
I didn't like the narrowing of the passage that this location created, so I removed the wooden block, repaired the floor and repositioned the aluminum base against the Stb side molded seat. I used 4 lag screws into the floor and though I thought about a further attachment to the molded seat, I didn't do that, as those would then have needed their attachment to the floor beefed up as they are only screwed down with #8 screws. That mod was done more than 20 yrs ago and has performed well, through a replacement of the chair when its upholstery had age out. So the 4 lag screws holding the aluminum base down have worked well, the aluminum support has also worked well, and there is just enough room to get past, though neither of us is very large.
I also use the seat base for a temporary stay attachment from the mast, when rigging for a heavy lift.
That location wouldn't work for folks with much more girth, so locating the post inside the molded seating would be necessary. That would require cushion cutting as well as FG seat cutting, so is a much bigger job.

 

[CharlieO.]

I have an interest in following this post. All I have done so far is to remove the bench seats. As noted, the visibility is terrible when seated and not the most comfortable seating either.

I haven't decided if I want to rebuild the bench seats and add swivels on both benches facing the bow or just add pedestals mounted to the deck and discard the benches or just completely redesign and build new built-in benches.

Either way it's probably not on my project list for this year but like to get ideas for future projects and can squirrel away some materials in the meantime.