How I added decks, storage, and floor to Alumacraft 1442NCS

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This is my 2015 boat with Endura Max 55 electric motor. I fished it a few times to decide where I wanted everything to be. You know what these boats look like. Here it is on some of my first outings with it. Devil's Lake (Wisconsin), and Wisconsin River. My fishing partner in the back seat who has since passed away.

Here's my buddy Steve fishing in it with me. Some girls who were floating down the river on innertubes were about to pass us.

 

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I wanted enclosed storage. This boat comes with none, as the front deck is enlarged due to the lack of center bench (gives me wide-open floor space which I was after) and therefore front deck contains a foam block for flotation. I determined that I would enclose the space behind the rear bench which would also give me a rear fishing deck.
I framed it with a composite 2x4 that I acquired for free as scrap (I work for a building materials company). I painted it black so that when I open the storage hatches it has a finished look around the rim. I needed to leave the center of the deck either solid, or open, to accommodate the motor mounted there, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the hatch open with the motor in the way. I chose to keep it enclosed, so I planned for two hinged hatches, one on each side. I made sure the openings in each would be big enough for a size 27 battery and the possible future addition of a small fuel tank. I took the boat out regularly while I was working on this, so you can see a small accessory battery which is the stock battery from one of my motorcycles, and a switch taped to the transom which was temporary for my front navigation light.

 

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What I used for the deck is 1/2 cdx plywood sealed with Helmsman spar urethane (if I did it again, I would use 3/8" to reduce weight, as it already sits on a solid platform. I would just reinforce the bottom side of the hatches so that the could be stood on.) I did the front and rear decks at the same time but I'm just gonna show you the rear one right now. The front one took more work.

I test-fitted the plywood, leaving a 1/8" gap on the sides and back for the carpet that I would add. On one side of the motor, I left a larger gap at the rear for my motor cable and possible future addition of a fuel line.

I then measured for the hatches and cut them out with a jig saw.

 

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I carpeted the deck using Marine Carpeting from Menards (a regional Home-Improvement store like Home Depot) and an all-purpose exterior carpet adhesive. I stapled the back.

I also trimmed 1/4" off of each side of the pieces I cut out for that hatch doors and carpeted those too. I screwed the deck down onto the boat using 1-1/2" stainless screws that I pre-drilled into the aluminum. The screw heads completely disappeared into the carpet. I attached the hatches with stainless steel hinges (yes, I added handles later).

People always ask about carpeting and what is good and what isn't. This carpeting was cheap (around 50 cents a square foot on sale) and at the time of this posting, went through two long seasons of fishing, parked outside, and still looks new.

 

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Ever wonder what it looks like under the front deck? I did too, and was gonna find out the hard way - by cutting a storage-hatch-size-hole in it! You can see the block of foam which I found to be surprisingly small for the amount of space in the cavity.

I had to cut the foam block apart with a knife to get it out of the hole (don't worry, I added an even higher-volume of foam under the floor which I'll show you in a bit.)

 

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Under here there is a lot of space. I store life jackets, throwable cushions, a small cooler, and is now also the compartment where I have my second battery hooked up. Same plywood carpeted deck and hinges.

That's a rough edge around that hatch opening - I used thin 1" plastic outside corner molding that I mitered in the corners to trim around that metal opening and attached it with construction adhesive and some screws.

 

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Looking at my photobucket account, that's all I can post until I retrieve the rest of the pictures off of my computer at work!
In-floor rod storage, tackle storage, deck rod storage, LED interior lighting, dual-battery installation, pedestal seating, and more to come!

 

[The10Man]

Looking at my photobucket account, that's all I can post until I retrieve the rest of the pictures off of my computer at work!
In-floor rod storage, tackle storage, deck rod storage, LED interior lighting, dual-battery installation, pedestal seating, and more to come!

Looks great so far! I'm looking forward to seeing the additional modifications and images.

 

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My front hatch trim and battery.

In the battery box cover, I drilled a 7/8" hole in three of the four corners to install switches. The switches operate my LED marine vessel lights and my interior LED lighting. You can see one of the interior lighting strips on the side near the front deck in the previous picture.

Here's what the lights look like at night.

 

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Now the heavy thinking began. I like my floor space maximized and don't want to narrow it with compartments. But I do want enclosed rod storage. Some people deck these boats all the way to the top, front to back. I like the high decks front and rear, but like a place to stand where I'm "in" the boat. I could also mount a seat and keep the center of gravity lower if I have a floor. My decision was to put rod storage in the floor. I needed to build up the floor to create a cavity underneath. A floor joist system was in order. To keep it light, I used the TJI floor joist principal crossed with a floor truss principal. I used 1x2s for the top and bottom chord, and 2x2 "posts" positioned above each floor rib to carry the load. I tested the strength of the 1x2 at this small spacing (less than two feet between floor ribs) by standing directly on it and it doesn't even flex at all. With a plywood floor attached to it I knew it would be absolutely solid.

I spaced them unevenly due to how I planned my in-floor-storage layout. I wanted two front-to-back hatches side-by-side on starboard, and knew that I need "bare" floor space on port so that I have a place to put stuff to get it off of the hatches for when I need to get into them. The bare floor space is also where I would mount a pedestal seat in the front. I didn't want a pedestal seat on my front deck because it would be in the way for moving around up there while fishing. My rear seat would be on the rear deck starboard side to drive the boat, and the front seat would be offset the equal distance from the center to the port side which would give me an equal weight balance with two people in the boat. Here's the joists with minimum material as possible and my 1x2 ledger boards on front and rear benches.

 

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I built up a support platform that would be covered by the floor for the seat pedestal to mount into with lags.

 

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Then I cut 1/2" CDX plywood to fit. It was two separate sections front and back. Two reasons behind why I cut it to fit inside the ribs rather than notching out for the ribs. First off, the boat measures over 48" to the outside of the ribs, and less than 48" to the inside. So this works out for cutting plywood and running it the long way rather than having to run it cross ways and buy twice as much. Second reason is because of the difficulty I would have cutting out all of those notches and getting them in the right place. I would fill in the space between the ribs with blocking (pictures to come).

 

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When I put in the blocking, I had to run it through a table saw to rip a corner off so that it matched the angle of my boat's wall. I attached it to the edge of the plywood with screws, and used 1x2 blocking underneath to mount it to as well. You can see the 2x2s ripped into a triangular shape in the second picture.

 

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Front and back portions of the floor fitted with blocking between the ribs and my storage hatch holes cut out. I then sealed the floor on all sides with the Helmsman spar urethane, 3 coats.
I had bought the tan-colored carpet on clearance and realized I would be short on carpet to do the floor. It was out of stock when I needed more, so I bought the same carpet in the charcoal color in the quantity I would need to do the floor and the floor hatches. I do wish I had done the front and rear decks in charcoal now as well, but does not look stupid the way it is.

The two long hatches are for the rods and I utilized the space next to it by cutting out a storage hatch there as well.

 

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Don't worry, I cut some 1.5 inch Owens Corning insulation to go between the ribs under the floor joist system before I screwed the floor together. If you haven't noticed already I not only sealed the floor joists with spar urethane, but I also painted them black. This way, when you open the storage hatches there's a finished black rim and black interior.

You can also see that I ripped down some 1/4" underlayment and applied it to the sides of the joists where the hatches would be. This fully enclosed the storage spaces by giving them "walls".

 

[dearl]

Good use for wasted space under the floor, good thinking.

 

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This 14 ft boat measures just shy of 7 ft between the front and rear benches. My rod length of choice is 7' and I have a few 7'6" rods. How do I make them fit? Simple - I planned for this and used inspiration from factory rod storage lockers that I've seen in many boats. They have a hole or a "tunnel" for the rod tips to slide into and the hatch area is only 3, 4, 5, or 6 feet long or more. I decided that 1.5" PVC would do the trick, so I measured the O.D. and used a hole saw to cut out for three of them in a piece of 1x6 which I would use for the front wall of each rod storage locker. I traced the hole locations onto the rear wall of the front bench so that I could tunnel through that, and cut out those holes as well. Once I put it all together, my rod tips can slide all the way up into the front bench area (which is now a wide-open storage compartment.) I'm guessing at least an 8 ft rod would fit in there.

You can see the PVC holes in this picture of the floor after it's complete (the front seat pedestal isn't screwed down yet). I used left-over tan carpet and laid a piece in the bottom of each rod locker and the storage hatch as well. Some tackle, bug spray, pliers, rope, rod holders, bait, and even a life jacket fit under the floor in that storage space. I can also carry 8 rods below deck.

 

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Lastly, I stood up on the front and rear decks and took some pictures of the finished boat!

 

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Later, I picked up this 8hp Mercury from a coworker for $500.

Now I'm going to be working on moving my trolling motor to the front. I mounted the gas motor offset from the center for now so that the troller fits back there with it. Works good with this low-hp motor. Boat still planes out! Also makes it easier to steer the tiller due to the motor's position further from my seat. I have a rear size 24 battery, and a front size 27 battery, and I run the trolling motor off of the front battery with cables that I ran under the floor ribs, and my lights and anything else runs off of the rear battery. I installed two terminals onto the battery box in the back that I connect those cables to and my trolling motor cables. If that front battery ever goes dead, I can very quickly just unscrew the trolling motor from those terminals and connect them to the rear battery as a back-up. I still mostly fish no-wake or electric-only lakes. So often times I have the Mercury removed from the boat. Still have oars and a paddle too so I'm not afraid to go all day on electric power.

 

[kmfw160]

WOW, she is looking awesome!