8ft Appleby project and a help question

Hey guy. This is my boat im working on. Its a 8ft Appleby. I wanted to add a floor and a casting deck.Now as you can tell from the first pic. It used to have 2 bench seats. i removed those. I added the casting deck and the floor. Now the boat seems too unstable for my tastes. I am thinking its to heavy on the front.I used 1/2 inch chipboard for the floor with 2x4's cut in half for the base. The casting deck is made of same material. I tested this with just me and brother weight. No batteries, tackle, trolling motor. The boat seemed to want to rock from side to side to much.Im sure you guys have some ideas on how to help. Thanks for a great site and any ideas to help.All i want to do is fish and be safe

Should have left the seats on, sorry to say, its 8 feet, impossible to stand in that, also the seats hold the boat together, so I would simply put benches screwed in the remaining edges of the original seats, add a seat level ( no post), best you can do.

Froggy said:

Should have left the seats on, sorry to say, its 8 feet, impossible to stand in that, also the seats hold the boat together, so I would simply put benches screwed in the remaining edges of the original seats, add a seat level ( no post), best you can do.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

However, the boat actually has a lot of potential. I’ve thought about buying/making a 9’ flat bottom pram for small, electric only, lake fishing. For the boat pictured above there are a couple things you must keep in mind no matter what:
1. As you stated before, once the deck is added, it becomes very unstable. The boat itself needs a low center of gravity to stay stable. The higher you go with a deck/floor, the higher the center of gravity becomes.
2. If you’re going to have 2 people(or even one) fishing in that boat, you really need to keep it organized.

So, how do you do that? Here’s a couple ideas: Start by installing bench seats using ¾” plywood and add new swivel seats without posts. After you do that, make useful storage out of the benches. If you were to install a flat board for the seats, you would have lots of room under the seats. It wouldn’t be real hard or costly to make storage under the seats. This could house, a battery, life vests, an anchor, tackle boxes, and any other accessories you might have. Doing so would maximize floor space and keep the boat really well organized.

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I disassembled everything and im going to start in the benches tonight. Great idea for the storage, I hadnt thought about it. One question. Do i keep them the same size as original ones.

you could make them as wide or narrow as you'd like. It's really up to you. If you built them wider and went with the storage route, you'd have more storage.

A floor with 2 pedestal seats is all I would do.

I would make some sort of support or put the rear bench back on and mount one of the seats to that. You could put the trolling motor batt and a tackle box under the seat.

Actually I would go with a 2 1/2hp outboard with the gas tank thats integral to the motor. It would be lighter than a trolling motor and battery. No need for a trolling motor in a boat that size. Just get a set of oars and install some oar locks for when your alone, or 2 collapsable paddles one for you and one for the guy up front when your fishing with a buddy.

Don't get discouraged! A boat like that will go anywhere and you will catch fish because you will be able to get to the good spots that others cant. Ponds, creeks, canals, lakes, flooded fields and woods. I didn't see where you were from but as a kid I remember when rivers would go over thier banks during the spring melt. Carp and catfish would get stuck in the woods in pools and in flooded fields. The water was always too cold for us to wade back in there and get them. One of my friends father got an old canoe and we put it on a little red wagon and towed it there with our bikes and killed so many Catfish with rocks we nearly couldn't get the canoe out of there.

Pt being.....That little boat could be very deadly if used properly! You may want to check out Orion outboards! They make a 6hp mud motor that would be awesome for that boat.

Thanks for that advice. I was considering as well of doing just a floor with pedestals. This boat has been very useful. I paid 100.00 for it and caught many fish with it. It definitely paid for itself. Thats not a bad idea about a back bench seat. That would still leave plenty of room.