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Not trying to dig up too old of a thread, but I have a similar problem. The boat is on a buoy on a pg&e (power company) lake so a lift isn’t an option for me… occasionally the chop gets rough that the platform slaps the water as the boat bobs up and down. I was looking for a better replacement bracket when I found this thread.
One thing that I have found that helps a huge amount is to leave the center ballast full, so the nose is lower and the transom/platform is a lot higher out of the water. I don’t think the nose is low enough that it would actually dip under (don’t even think I’ve seen it get close) but I do have a 220 which has a decent amount of freeboard and a snap on cover that would keep most of the water out anyway, but ymmv.
As for the brackets themselves… man did nautique do a really good job of making the most annoying brackets possible. On the boat side they’re pretty much in a straight line, but they needed to add a spacer for the center one to make room for the pretty much useless wakeshaper plate. On the platform side they’re positioned on an arc and fanned out as well, but not fanned out enough that all the brackets could all be the same. So you need three unique brackets. The curvature isn’t enough to use the newer (fold-on maybe?) style brackets and just for good measure the fiberglass mounting pad on the platform was obviously made before the center bracket had a spacer, so the outer brackets sit about 1/4” forward of the pad and the center is 3/4” behind the start. This isn’t a huge structural problem or anything, just annoying when you notice it.
Since you can’t use the newer brackets I was planning on making something sturdier (using a dovetail joint) but I’m worried that if I make it any stronger it will just start cracking the fiberglass. I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I’m leaning toward replacing the existing brackets and adding a section of 1x2 aluminum tubing under it to give a little more clearance.
One thing that I have found that helps a huge amount is to leave the center ballast full, so the nose is lower and the transom/platform is a lot higher out of the water. I don’t think the nose is low enough that it would actually dip under (don’t even think I’ve seen it get close) but I do have a 220 which has a decent amount of freeboard and a snap on cover that would keep most of the water out anyway, but ymmv.
As for the brackets themselves… man did nautique do a really good job of making the most annoying brackets possible. On the boat side they’re pretty much in a straight line, but they needed to add a spacer for the center one to make room for the pretty much useless wakeshaper plate. On the platform side they’re positioned on an arc and fanned out as well, but not fanned out enough that all the brackets could all be the same. So you need three unique brackets. The curvature isn’t enough to use the newer (fold-on maybe?) style brackets and just for good measure the fiberglass mounting pad on the platform was obviously made before the center bracket had a spacer, so the outer brackets sit about 1/4” forward of the pad and the center is 3/4” behind the start. This isn’t a huge structural problem or anything, just annoying when you notice it.
Since you can’t use the newer brackets I was planning on making something sturdier (using a dovetail joint) but I’m worried that if I make it any stronger it will just start cracking the fiberglass. I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I’m leaning toward replacing the existing brackets and adding a section of 1x2 aluminum tubing under it to give a little more clearance.
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