Rick and Laurel,

I just completed the project you are asking about. Another C36 member, who berths his boat in my marina, has had the stern seats for several years without any problems. Using his project as a guide I made a template of the seat and with a few modification came up with my own design. (I did find a few boats wtih the commercially made seats and found the custom built seats look better, as funtional and cost a lot less, $279+shipping vs. @ $150.)

I took my boat out yesterday for a couple of hours and found the seat to be comfortable and very funtional. The seats are even located within arms reach of my steering wheel and navigation system. They utilize an area of the boat that rarely is used by anyone and they don't get in the way of the captain as he steers...

I found myselft perched on the port seat for most of my motor/sail. What was funny was my son just happened to come along with me and asked, while he was perched on the starboard seat, why I had not done this seat project a long time ago? After using the seats I had to agree with him.

Regarding the strength of the 1" SS rail. I have not detected any flex or strain on the tubing. I say, "Yes!" on the seats. I don't think you will regret adding this to your list of things to do to the boat.

I did take some photos of the project and plan on posting it in the next few days...

Chris

Chris, do you have enough to make an article on this for JibSheet or for our Technical-Upgrades archive? If so, could you give me an email separately? LCBrandt(at)coastpilot(dot)com, or call me 503.358.5102. I can coach you through the process. Thanks.

Chris- please do post photos and info on your project. Many members (me and my 1989 tall rig included!) would be interested.

As Larry suggested, publishing the project in Jibsheet would be terrific.

Many folks have done it, here's one, we have one on ours, too.

I won't repeat this each time, Larry, but I applaud your relentlessness about gathering great info to package and share with the membership. Thanks for all your efforts!

Stu
Don't you hit your head on the Bimini top when sitting on the seat.

Mike, we don't have a bimini. It's usually so cold and breezy here we need all the heat we can get. When I go up to the Delta where it's hot in the summer we use a movable umbrella!

Folks with biminis should comment, but I figure your head'd be aft of the bimini on those seats.

We have the Zarcor stern seats with the seat pads and rail padding and they are great. We have a bimini that stops at the back stay so it does not interfere when you are in the stern seats. However, this is Texas (Hot! Hot! Hot!) and when we have the bimini replaced we will have it extended aft to cover the seats. This means that we will have to take into consideration headroom when adding the extension. This is on a 1987 Mark I.

Hope this helps.

Our 1999 model has the perch seats built into the rail and we like them very much. Being in SW Florida, we have a full length Bimini that is over your head when sitting on the seats.

People 5ft 10in and less have no porblems on the seats. Taller ones would, so they just stick to the cockpit seats.

I installed the stern rail seats 4-5 years ago and wanted to share my modification of the vertical post to an angle post that allows the aft lazerette to open without having to raise the seats. When working the geometry make sure the aft end of the seat overhangs the aft stern rail. I did not do this and my stern rail seats are beginning to crack along the drilled holes for the post. I did this to use the orginal drilled holes for the vertical post. If you are constructing from scratch that will not be a problem. I purchased four 30 or 40 degree (standard) mounting brackets from WM and mounted the base onto the aft end of the coaming as shown. Also makes a great place for speakers and I ran the wires down the support post inot the coaming box. From one picture you can see how my aft seat side does not over hang the aft stern rail and this caused the star board to start to crack. I will rebuild using thicker star-board and rotate the support post brackets aft so the seats do overhang.

We have a bimini that allows 6'4" of headroom and a 6'3" friend of mine sitting on stern rail seats had ample head room. I also canted my seats to match the slope of the aft stern rail for asthetics and fuction as it holds you in better in rough conditions. Just do not sit anything on them of value except your bum as you will be diving for tools as I did in Catalina one weekend.

Looks nicely done, Mark. Thanks for sharing that.

Thanks Duane, One other thing. I think I had to buy larging tubing to fit the standard 1" brackets from WM and do not buy the cheap ones like I did as you can see after 5 years they show considerable corrosion. Go with SS - and SS tubing.

Our 1991 boat had the stern perch seats when we purchased it and we just added a bimini that extends over the pushpit rail.

I find that my head is about the same height standing at the helm, or seated in the stern perch, so if you have adequate room standing at the helm, you should be fine in the stern perch seat.

Replaced the Stearn Perch seats last spring on Scott Free since the plastic was starting to crack through. Bought some Starboard and used existing seats as a pattern and reattached the existing hardware, works fine, looks better. Cost was less than $50.
Bob Scott
#1073

Rick and Laurel,

I just finished the project info on my stern seat for 24~7 and forwarded it to Larry Brandt. If all is right he's going to post the project with photos... hope it all works our for you...good luck with the boat...

Chris

Chris's excellent and well documented article on fabricating stern seats has now been posted in the Technical - Upgrades section. From the C36IA homepage, click Technical, and then click Upgrades. Note that this is a protected page, accessible to signed-in C36IA Members (capital M) only.

Well done with the project, the write-up, and the editing!