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Old 08-28-2012, 03:24 PM   #19
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dswizzler View Post
If your are up in the PNW where it is cool and damp alot of the time, you will most likely not use a FB as much.
A lot of people up here who prefer driving from the flying bridge will have them enclosed and in some cases, heated. As it rarely gets down to freezing here temperatures are not so much an issue as rain and wind. A flying bridge enclosure deals with the weather issue as well as provides protection for the com and nav systems.

Another thing to consider with regards to the use of a flying bridge is that the higher off the water one gets, the greater the motion--- pitching and rolling--- they will experience. If one boats in relatively smooth waters all the time it's not an issue but if encounters with rough water are a possibility or frequent, having a lower helm could be very beneficial particularly for people with a low tolerance of boat motion.

The redundancy of a second helm station is nice to have although in the case of our boat with its chain and cable steering if the lower helm ceases to function the upper helm won't work either. But our multi-function depth/speed/etc. instrument has a repeater up top and we have a new self-contained GPS plotter for our fishing boat that can be mounted on the GB's flying bridge console, too. So we could run and navigate the GB from the flying bridge if we absolutely had to.
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