Carpet or Not

[Steven Parker]

I have seen bass boats with what I call a "salt water" deck on them instead of carpet. This is just the white deck like you see in salt water boats. Has anyone ever owned one of these and what would the advantages or disadvantages be to have this white deck?

Seems like it would be cooler, and much easier to clean.

 

[Greg Meyer]

Not cooler... but easier to clean... The setup I like is carpet over washable deck with snaps on the carpet.... Take the carpet out to clean it or to clean the boat... or as when we fish in winter (snow) the boat carpet gets beat up... so I would like to take it out and if it ages replace it... That fiberglass or vinyl deck is very nice

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

Without carpet, there is a lot of noise out of the lids when running.



TOXIC

 

[William H. (Bill) Barham]

I haven't noticed the noise before. Probably just me though and I'll pay attention the next time I'm in a bay boat.

Scrub brush, some kind of cleaner (my neighbor just used his wife's dish detergent) and hose it out. A lot of bay guys use chum and man does it get bloody and nasty looking. I don't think you could get that out of carpet.



Uncle Billy

 

[fatrap]

I love the snap on carpet idea. That'd be great. a lot of times when I'm dragging crawlers for eyes the dirt from the crawler containers gets everywhere. Put the boat on plane and your eating dirt that gets blown out of the capret.

We have a carpetless boat at BPS, bass boat style. Kind of neat.



fatrap

 

[Greg Meyer]

When pulling harnesses... wash your crawlers the night before and pack them back in shredded paper... They do fine in the cooler and I always separate out about a dozen to be left without paper in a cottage cheese container and then use those... then replenish from the shredded paper supply... much cleaner. Also, in active fish I use Gulp worms and skip the real crawlers (at least for a try)... because they are much easier to fish and stay on, don't get pecked or pulled off.

 

[fatrap]

Thanks gonna try that.



fatrap

 

[TOMMY RICH]

Worm bedding is all that's allowed in my boat!

 

[mike chip]

if the boats a tracker or fisher. the materal looks like vinyl. it seems like it would not deaden the sound. from the boats ive inspected it does not look like its glued down to well. the best one ive seen for me is the nitro 898 i think? it has the removalable carpet which is really sweet.

mike c

 

[Rich Stern]

Have had boats with diamond no-skid, sandpaper no-skid, permanent carpet, snap in carpet. Snap-in would be my choice every time, if it were available.



Only truly white gel-coat doesn't get hot (but it puts out a lot of glare). Light shades of white can get a bit hot, although much more tolerable than any shade of light to dark gray.



It's a real head scratcher when you see boats being sold in the south with medium or dark gray (or black!) carpet and seating vinyl. Those boats need to be up in Canada. Browns and beiges work fairly well at not giving first degree burns.

 

[Larry Harp]

One material that I've always thought would make a great boat deck covering is commercial rubber floor tile. I used to rep for two different companies, Flexco and Johnsonite, that manufactured various rubber and vinyl products such a cove base, mouldings, and rubber tile...also available in rolls. It's resilient, sound deadening comes in a rainbow of colors, and

it's coefficient of friction goes up when it gets wet...perfect for a boat. Not sure what the sun would do to it since it's designed for indoor use it probably doesn't have much in the way of UV protection. Could be something cool to play around with.



Harpo