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Old 08-28-2012, 01:28 PM   #8
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
We never drive the boat from the flying bridge because neither my wife nor I like the sight picture from up there for close-in maneuvering. We find it much easier and more accurate to judge the boat's position from the lower helm than from the flying bridge. Deck access while docking is far faster from the lower helm if the person on deck needs a fast hand. Also we can't hear or smell what's going on in the engine room up there.

We nearly had a fire in the lower helm instrument console shortly after buying the boat due to a failed intercom/PA unit and had my wife not discovered it when she went below to get something our first clue there was a problem may well have been the flames. So we will never again operate a boat from the flying bridge.

That said, it's a great asset to the boat. Guests like to ride up there when it's nice and it's a great place to sit once we've reached our destination. So I'm glad we have it. However we both feel the ideal boat configuration is a raised pilothouse. If we had that we would probably prefer not to have a flying bridge at all although some pilothouse boats (Krogen, Fleming, etc.) can be had with a flying bridge just aft of the pilothouse.
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