When I had the boat rebuilt, I did not give them the seats because I was upholstering them myself and I wanted to mount them too. They asked me for them, but I would not give them up to the re-builders. This is the reason: My drivers seat is only 19 inches wide. I mounted it as close to the right side of the boat as was practical. This means that is is not centered on the steering wheel. It is quite a bit to the right of centered. This is the second boat that I have done that way because it gives more room in the boat and with my right hand on the throttle and left hand on the wheel, it feels natural. If I centered the wheel on the seat, it would not be centered on the instrument cluster and that would be very noticeable in my opinion The really interesting part of this is that no one has ever noticed this. Even people that have driven the boat have not noticed it. There are many pictures of the boat out there and no one ever noticed it. At least no one ever commented on it. The even more interesting aspect of this is that I got so used to it that I forgot that it was not centered until I started to do some seating diagrams for the custom 20 design thread. I like having the throttle sort of centered on my right shoulder and the wheel on the left. How about that, jim
very interesting, would have never of thought of that idea or even looking to see if the driver's seat is centered to the wheel. how far off center is the seat compared to the wheel?
I noticed during my rebuild that the original steering wheel location was not centered with the dash. Since we put in all new wood under the deck, and the location of the wheel was fiberglassed over and painted, we went ahead and more or less centered it with the dash when we drilled the hole for the Hydraulic helm. I also contemplated options for the driver's seat relative to the side of the boat. Because I wanted to use a swivel seat instead of a rear view mirror (an idea that I actually got from you, Jim), I opted to leave my seat a bit further from the side of the boat. It does make getting between the seats a bit tight. However, I love having the ability to turn my body one way or the other to look back and the seat moves slightly with me. Yet there is no sense of lack of support (i.e. you don't move sideways or anything when you hit the throttle). Unlike the passenger side seat, my driver's seat will not swivel 180 degrees because the throttle assembly sticks our far enough to prevent that. However, both of the port side seats swivel 360 degrees, which has been one of my favorite features of the boat. You can have both passengers facing backwards for skiing and both facing forward when out zooming around. In some ways it is really a perfect set up. The only thing you can't do is put two passengers in the forward seat for weight distribution, the way you can in the Dyne's that have a rear-facing bench seat at that location. You'll notice in the BanoDyne video on this website than in the opening waterski shot I was both filming and driving. This was possible because I could twist around clockwise and take the shot. (By the way, there were no other boats on our lake at the time - it is not a very busy lake as it is more or less at the end of the chain and 1/2 of it is undeveloped shoreline). That is my safety disclaimer. Not to take anything away from the craftsmanship on the old Dynes, but while I was rebuilding my boat I definately got the sense that some things were eyeballed and hardware and fittings seemed to be drilled or mounted at a specific location simply because that is where the drill bit hit... Perhaps they used some sort of templates but I'd bet most of these boats are slightly different from each other. It is one of the things that makes them special.
I had people ask if they could measure the stripe location twice. Both times was at the nationals. I told them they were welcome, but that I doubted that there were two boats alike in that regard for the same reason Mark. jim
I just looked at some old pictures of the boat when it was an I/O. It was built with the wheel offset!! jim
