Kennedy Kraft 14ft - bench seats to pedestal seats is it worth it???

Hi I have a 1982 14ft Kennedy Kraft fiberglass boat with two bench seats, each has a mounted non moving standard padded boat seat. (I will add a pic soon) What I would like to do is cut out both front and back bench seats and just install two pedestal seats so my son and I can fish comfortably in any direction instead of being stuck in a forward facing postion.

I would also like to add stick steering to the front of the boat along with a trolling motor mount on the bow. The only problem is Im clueless on how to do any of it. The boat is in excellent condition and I would hate to ruin it. Im sure I could do myself if I could find a good book that would show me how its properly done, but Im also thinking I might be better off selling it and buying a boat that is already designed the way I need it. Please let me know what you guys think.

Thanks for your help,

Pete

 

Okay, I see nobody else has replied to this so I am going to stab blindly here and tell you what not to do....Just bought a kennedy kraft with pedestals that wasn't done properly....

The pedestals in my boat were all but done correctly. They actually screwed the front pedestal to the floor and the screws went through the outer hull....After finding that the hull was full of water, they tried to patch it (rather poorly, i might add with fiberglass resin and cloth) on the inside but nothing on the outside. The rear pedestal was installed using what appears to be JB Weld.

Now, here is what I had to do to fix the problem...

I removed both pedestals and sanded all of their fiberglass screw up down to level the floor back out. I then poured new fiberglass with mat to completely rebuild the inner hull floor. I took the boat off the trailer and patched the bottom of the boat.

Once I got that complete, I took the pedestals and placed them where I wanted to install them. I drew around the base and used an air grinder with a sanding wheel to lower the level of the inner hull to get a sturdy base for the pedestal. I then placed the pedestals back in the boat and fiberglassed over them with the mat. It took a whole lot of patience and work to make it right....Actually took me about 4 days to complete this project.

Afterwards, the pedestals are in and they are in well. For my particular application it took me 6 packs of fiberglass mat and 3 gallons of resin to complete the project. I do have a nice boat now and it cost me more for the fiberglass and mat than it did for the boat, motor, and trailer....My next project is to cut the pedestals off and install bench seats in the boat for my children to be able to ride in it.

But I intend to use the pedestals as the base for seats that I am installing.

This is how I would recommend to do it anyway.....

 

Finally, something I have genuine boating experience with and somebody asks!

My dad had a 14 foot aluminum boat made in 1966, the year I was born. It had the bench seats you describe. 25 hp Johnson outboard with a brass screw. I can't recall the boat brand but for some reason the Spartan aircraft and camper company comes to mind. Did they make boats?

We spent years fishing in that boat. The seats were not especially comfortable when you think "seat" because they were not padded or anything. However, if you bring along an extra cushion-type PFD or two, they worked extremely well as a napping place. When used that way, they also facilitate the long, personal discussions that should happen between a father and a son. One of you parks with your head to the port, and the other has his head to the starboard. You can see over the side to the opposite side, and with a slight roll of your head you see your fishing partner. The rocking of the boat on the occasional ripple works better than any massage chair you ever saw.

We were on Lake Oahe in South Dakota most of the time. This is a very large man-made lake. We would fish for salmon, using downriggers. He would point the boat in the right direction and we would start trolling. I would set up my rods and then set up my cushions, and in five minutes I was out like a light. Then we would trade spots, I would drive and my dad would nap instead of staying just awake enough to steer the boat and watch the rods.

After a few years, my dad had to sell the boat because he "upgraded" to a "better" boat. I didn't have the cash on me at the time, and I never really forgave him for selling it. The new monstrosity was an 18 ft fiberglass Bayliner, had pedestal seats with padding and carpet on everything that was not a seat. It had no decent place to nap, and was too high in the water to fish from comfortably. It wasn't made for fishing, it was too fast to troll under engine power and too slow to ski behind. It was probably a very nice family outing type of boat, but I was not into that.

I have been on many fishing boats which were several times more expensive than that little thing, but I have never been on a better fishing boat. I wonder if I could track down the current owner?

I recommend that before you trash your boat, you try the napping method. If your boat is anything like my dad's was, altering it in any way would be a horrible thing.

 

That was exactly my thoughts. I finished my bench seats yesterday in my boat to make the boat safer and better for my children. I am going to take pictures maybe today and place them online.

Of course, my boat is a fiberglass boat but I also have two aluminum boats with bench seats and the 1960 AlumaCraft, I had to rebuild the seats in it. The thing that I have always done is install cushion seats that you can buy at any boating shop or wally world.

My AlumaCraft was my grandfathers and has been passed down. That boat is actually the smoothest riding V-Hull that I have ever been in.

Anyway, I wouldn't bother with the pedestals either unless you are willing to put forth the effort to build the boat properly.

 

I forgot to mention the additional space for a big black labrador in the middle, where he can conveniently lick either face with no warning.

One day when he was a puppy, we were fishing upstream of the dam about 20 miles. There was zero wind, which was odd, and the water was so still that the reflection was a mirror image of the reality, which was extremely rare and also fantastically beautiful.

We had trolled for a couple hours, and the dog decided it was too hot and too boring. He got up and stepped out onto the lake so he could take a walk.

I saw it coming, and was already reaching for him. Too late. I saw how his foot went down, he fully expected to walk on that water as though it were a parking lot. Well, it cooled him off some anyway.


More than anything, this thread has sparked a yearning for a boat built The Way It Should Be. As soon as you make padded seats and steering wheels, you are lost. Cushions are to be brought along if necessary. A steering wheel only gets in the way. Pedestal seats have moving parts, which means they rattle around and eventually break.

That old boat we had was exactly the same on the day it came out of the factory as it had been on the day my dad sold it 35 years later. It had everything it needed and nothing it didn't, and what it needed changed not one bit in 35 years. It was the embodiment of an ideal puddle-jumper aluminum fishing boat. Every aspect of it was conducive to fishing, and no aspect was conducive for anything else. There were no mistakes in its construction, no bad behavior, no shortcuts, nothing that was stylish one year and not the next. It was what it was, no apologies. If I found it today I would use it exactly as it was, unmodified.

Maybe I need to go fishing with my dad?