# carolina skiff, Home made back deck? side gunnel"decks"



## firecat1981 (Nov 27, 2007)

Can you do all that, yes, will it be a pain, yes, will it be costly, yes, a pain in the A$$, yes.

carolina skiffs are made as plug and play boats, thats the beauty of them, but it's also why they never look finished very well. You can deck it out like anything else, but it will add a bit of weight and the main thing that would turn me off is to add the caps and flush decks you will need to do a ton of grinding on the gelcoat and also remove and most likely replace the rubrail. Pricey stuff. 

I would build my own bolt on decks and be done with it.


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## mudd_minnow (Oct 13, 2010)

Hey logansboat,
I've never seen any CS with side gunnals like a flats boat. I purchased a rear deck but, I would have built a rear deck if I had not purchased one. My CS 17 ft I decked from the front casting platform to the center console. I did major overkill on the top deck thickness but, that boat was designed to handle weight and still float 6 inches. The weight is not a factor on these boats if your going to deck it. I did it, added a lot of weight and it still went 35 mph. 
Here is a picture









The rear deck I had was a CS deck but Build your own. You will love it. You don't even have to fiberglass the deck in perminitly, just 5200 and some screws if you want. I did.
You can use 1/2 inch plywood with bracing, cover it in fiberglass or I painted mine with epoxy paint which worked very well. But, my top decking was 3/4 ply with fiberglassed raped 3 times which was major overkill. My requirments I wanted was having a flat deck that did not flex, I got it.


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## logandorn (Nov 27, 2010)

Yah, Like i mean i think i could make it the way i want it, i even got a buddy with over the transom livewells on his and the look good. but CS doesn't make em anymore.


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## mudd_minnow (Oct 13, 2010)

"You" "can" "do" "it"..... I have faith in you. Just give it a try. I dare you do be adventurous.


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## logandorn96 (Mar 27, 2011)

the thing is i want a longer boat


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## mudd_minnow (Oct 13, 2010)

Now we get down to the truth A-Ha! 
So you say you want a bigger boat.....

CS has a 28 footer. That's a beast. I saw one on craigs list. It was so long the guy had to take 2 shots to post.

Just joking ;D

Ok, now down to business, There is a very long and wide flat bottom boat that floats very shallow. You can build or find on craigs list maybe but, I don't recall the name. The guy put a tunnel under it. This boat ran skinny. I'm sure others here can give you ideas.


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## firecat1981 (Nov 27, 2007)

something tells me this is the boat MM is refering too

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=XF20

Fairly simply build, but a huge undertaking, I would try to fix up your boat first since that will be fairly inexensive before dumping thousands into a build.


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## mudd_minnow (Oct 13, 2010)

Exactly the boat. This would be the boat for a family of 4 to go flats fishing HA!HA! Thanks FC, I like this boat even though it would beat you to death in heavy chop, this boat would work for me.


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