Reason for leaving off handrails?

[SC_Hat_Man]

I've been looking at several boats that the owners have permanently removed the handrails. I typically like them for not losing anyone over the side during docking or out cruising. My wife and I were discussing the reason. I've heard that it's supposed to make the boat look more current, while my wife thinks the boatyard will charge less money for the paint job. I've searched the forum on the topic, but it mainly talks about how to remove, repair or seal handrails. I'm curious if the reason is esthetic, economic or maintenance driven?

[C. Edmund]

Assuming you are talking about convertibles, the only reason I've heard for leaving them off is for a clean look. This is especially true for the boats with a real outer banks bow flare. Never heard about the painting price issue, though they do take some maintenance to keep bright.

Normally, only pure fish boats leave them off. They certainly make the bow a social and safe area if they are still on the boat. If you value that part of the boat at all as a social area, leave the rails on (or re install them). Not safe at all to have folks on the bow without them.

[rsmith]

Years ago my dad liked to perch on the front of our 13 whaler which is mounted on the bow. I had the Marine patrol stop me and was warned that it was illegal for anyone to be up on the bow when underway. wonder what they would say with no bow rail? But then again if someone is going to be harrased it will be me.

[Tim Powell]

Assuming you are talking about convertibles, the only reason I've heard for leaving them off is for a clean look. This is especially true for the boats with a real outer banks bow flare. Never heard about the painting price issue, though they do take some maintenance to keep bright.

Normally, only pure fish boats leave them off. They certainly make the bow a social and safe area if they are still on the boat. If you value that part of the boat at all as a social area, leave the rails on (or re install them). Not safe at all to have folks on the bow without them.


I belive you are 100% correct..Hower as you are aware the carolina style started in the back yard,and was intended to be a charter boat. COST factors were installed and bow rails were left off and looked good.Some went to cheaper materials than the stanless which come on the hats.the rules were customers in the salon and the cockpit not on he bridge or the bow so no need to have them on charter boats and the look caught on.

[REBrueckner]

Perhaps the charter boats should also take off all anchors since they never anchor??

I'm surprised in thinking about no handrails that insurance companies don't take a position...all you need is an emergency requiring someone to be on the bow offshore without handrails, perhaps to anchor perhaps to secure a towline, and go overboard....crew member sues owner????

[C. Edmund]

Except for the charter boats and other hard core fish boats -- most of the convertibles around the MHC-Beaufort areas you see cruising inside Beaufort inlet around Shack, the cape, Front Street, the basin, the ICW, etc, have rails and more often than not have passengers on the bow -- their legs straddling one of the rail supports. It is a great place to ride, plenty of breeze, great visibility and it's the quietest place on the boat.

With rails? Very safe.

Without? Just asking for an accident to happen.

[daniel r morrison]

I removed the bow rails on my 42c for safety purposes. I Have a 11' hard bottom on the deck that I consider my life raft. With the rails in place I needed the electric davit to launch it, without them I can merely push it over the side. My feeling is I have no control when an emergency happens, fire or sinking, and launch time is of the essence. I do have control as to when I allow people on the front deck. Anyone on deck can stand between the davit and the dinghy and have plenty of hand holds. And yes I do have life vests, but given the remote areas I fish in the Bahamas I would rather not take the chance of being some big fish's dinner if something happens.

[MikeP]

Frankly, I can't imagine such a thing (no bow rails) unless the boat is specifically configured where no one would every have to (or want to) be forward, That would mean no anchor or any other accessory (bench, whatever) up there. No bow rails and people on the fore deck strikes me like a car driving down the road with people riding on the hood. ;)

[rsmith]

I removed the bow rails on my 42c for safety purposes. I Have a 11' hard bottom on the deck that I consider my life raft. With the rails in place I needed the electric davit to launch it, without them I can merely push it over the side. My feeling is I have no control when an emergency happens, fire or sinking, and launch time is of the essence. I do have control as to when I allow people on the front deck. Anyone on deck can stand between the davit and the dinghy and have plenty of hand holds. And yes I do have life vests, but given the remote areas I fish in the Bahamas I would rather not take the chance of being some big fish's dinner if something happens.


Dont count on that raft on the bow in a fire. Having been on a 46 that burned 40 nm off cape may the windage of the bow makes it drift down wind and the flames bust out of the side and forward deckhouse windows. Bottomline things happened so fast we couldnt get to the raft on the bow and ended up in the water with nothing but lifejackets. If we didnt have a boat near us we would have been done for.

[C. Edmund]

I removed the bow rails on my 42c for safety purposes. I Have a 11' hard bottom on the deck that I consider my life raft. With the rails in place I needed the electric davit to launch it, without them I can merely push it over the side. My feeling is I have no control when an emergency happens, fire or sinking, and launch time is of the essence. I do have control as to when I allow people on the front deck. Anyone on deck can stand between the davit and the dinghy and have plenty of hand holds. And yes I do have life vests, but given the remote areas I fish in the Bahamas I would rather not take the chance of being some big fish's dinner if something happens.

You gotta do what you gotta do -- that which makes you comfortable. But I don't follow the logic here at all. Who knows whether a rail will be a factor in an emergency. Each one is different.

Meanwhile, there's no debate that in the normal day to day, rails are safer.

[MikeP]

Well, of course, a dink is not a life raft though I suspect most of us treat it that way. Our dink is on the FB and has quick releases to that it can be free of the boat in a couple of seconds. The LOGIC is that if the boat's sinking, one could just get in, hit the releases, and wait for the boat to sink out from under you.

But that presupposes a whole bunch of favorable things, most especially NO FIRE! So an actual deployable life raft is the only really reasonable way to assume you will actually have an escape route other than just jumping overboard and floating (hopefully - who actually WEARS a PFD?) until rescue arrives. No, we don't have a life raft...;)

[rsmith]

Well, of course, a dink is not a life raft though I suspect most of us treat it that way. Our dink is on the FB and has quick releases to that it can be free of the boat in a couple of seconds. The LOGIC is that if the boat's sinking, one could just get in, hit the releases, and wait for the boat to sink out from under you.

But that presupposes a whole bunch of favorable things, most especially NO FIRE! So an actual deployable life raft is the only really reasonable way to assume you will actually have an escape route other than just jumping overboard and floating (hopefully - who actually WEARS a PFD?) until rescue arrives. No, we don't have a life raft...;)


You gota have a plan and think it through before your in the emergency. Pilots practice emergencys all the time so when it does happen they do it automaticly. As boaters we come up with senarios that sound good sitting at the dock. But add in no power, a seway, rolling in a trough the added rolling weight of a bunch of water in the bilge sloshing side to side. panicking crewmembers, calling for help, looking for emergency pumps burried under tons of other crap, things get dicy real quick.
And if the boat is sinking chances are its going on its side before it goes down so the dink will probably get damaged or be upside down.
The big key to survival which the USAF teaches in survival training is to tie everything and everybody together you have a better chance for survival. Sorry for being so anal about this and Im sure you,ve thought things thru but most guys I run into either have no plan(it wont happen to me) or their plan is wofully inadaquate. I think everyone should go out on a moderatly rough day cut the engines and see if what they think will actually work. Its a lot different when you need one hand for me and one for the boat. It takes a lot longer to do stuff.

[GJH]

That's a great post, rsmith.

Back to the OP, while the primary purpose is to look cool, there are some practical reasons too. Those big battle wagons take a tremendous amount of water at very high speed when blasting out to the canyons, even those boats with pronounced "Carolina Flare". That's also why they stopped having forward facing windows and glassed them in.

I learned this once going out on a fast and beautiful Rybovich for the first time, and I asked questions about both. The owner said, " ask me again when we get back into port". I didn't have to.

[MicroKap]

I agree that bow rails add a safety factor, however, removing the ability to anchor safely is not one of the negatives. A lot of charter boats and newer Carolina boats make accomodations to store the anchor in the cockpit area. They throw the anchor overboard from the cockpit with a line going forward to the bow cleat (preset). They let out the amount of line they require, secure the anchor line in the cockpit. When ready to retreive, they slide a ball fender down the anchor line as they move under power at a 45 degree angle with the float supporting the weight of the anchor. They retreive the anchor line by hand, pull the anchor up over the gunnel and place it into its "holder" in the cockpit. Very simple, no windlass, breakers, batteries to maintain.

[sgharford]

We used that ball trick fishing for Halibut on a friends boat in Alaska. Bastards had me pull 200' of anchor line first time around for a laugh before showing me trick you described above on next spot. It really works great. Never seen anything like it around Long Island and don't know why except for possible anchorage congestion. I don't think it would work well with all chain rode, but hell, what do I know about this K.I.S.S. method.

[Avenger]

Never seen anything like it around Long Island and don't know why except for possible anchorage congestion.That's because you have a "Motor Yacht". Guys who fish and have to anchor in deeper water either have a windlass or use the ball trick.

I use the ball, but "Mike the windlass" still has to pull in all the line. :)

[C. Edmund]

Back to the OP, while the primary purpose is to look cool, there are some practical reasons too. Those big battle wagons take a tremendous amount of water at very high speed when blasting out to the canyons, even those boats with pronounced "Carolina Flare". That's also why they stopped having forward facing windows and glassed them in.


Not sure I understand what taking the water has to do with the rails being left off. Can you explain?

( Also, I think the main reason for the glassed in forward windows has to do more with heat reduction, nicer and bigger fly bridges and design competition than it has to do with taking water. )

[daniel r morrison]

Everyone uses their boat differently. A clear bow is important as most of our cast netting is done from the bow, which a rail would prohibit,with the added benefit of easy launch of the inflatable. For those pleasure boaters who sit people or allow passengers on the front deck,good luck. Serious fishing is certainly different than family cruising. Personally I feel a rail is a false sense of security, as witnessed by so many fatalities. Each captain rules his vessel, the individual makes the difference as always.

[jim rosenthal]

I had to go forward on the bow deck to embark, then again to help raft up on Saturday, and then forward again to come back in the slip. All of this on a friend's boat with no foredeck rail and very few handholds. I didn't like it at all. And this in calm weather. I don't want to do that again.

I know convertibles look better with no bow rail. My cars probably look better without seat belts, too; a lot cleaner. I still have them and use them. I'll trade clean for safe.

This isn't the specific purpose of this thread, but it IS about rails: older Hatteras Yachts have a deck rail system that is built of bronze bases, and an assembled rail held together by cast fittings and setscrews. All of this stuff needs to be inspected from time to time and tightened; it can and will work loose, and then it may not do its job of catching someone who's about to go overboard. ALSO, the bronze bases are fastened to the deck by bronze bolts which are screwed into a plate glassed into the toerail, or caprail, or whatever it's called. On my boat, I found that the bronze bolts had all wasted away from electrolysis and that when I got the boat, of nearly forty bolts that were supposed to be holding the bases to the deck, only about four were doing anything. The rest were long since ready for the boneyard. I had to drill them all out, remake the holes with epoxy, and replace all the bolts with stainless bolts. Years later, we had to take the rail system off for a paint job. The SS bolts were all there and holding tight. Lesson is that the bow rail in its entirety is only as good as what is holding it onto the boat.

[GJH]

Not sure I understand what taking the water has to do with the rails being left off. Can you explain?

( Also, I think the main reason for the glassed in forward windows has to do more with heat reduction, nicer and bigger fly bridges and design competition than it has to do with taking water. )

Green water, the result of punching through waves at 30 knots. You'll notice that as boats got faster and faster, the trend towards glassed-in fronts and no rails accelerated too.

These hard core tournament big game fishers are maniacs. Not my cup of tea on a regular basis, but sure was fun a few times on someone else's nickels. The money spent on the boats, fuel, equipment, maintenance and crew definitely falls into the "if you have to ask how much, you can't afford it" category.

[C. Edmund]

I know convertibles look better with no bow rail.

This does seem to be the popular opinion -- but I have a different take.

I do think a new 60 foot Carolina flare hard core fishing boat -- like a Mann or Spencer or Garlington -- is a gorgeous boat and looks like it should with no rail. (yes, I know Garlington's are made in Florida -- but they are a Carolina style boat nonetheless)

However, I think a 45 or 46 Hatt for exmple -- that is nicely done in a yacht look and is capable of fishing but not merely a fish boat -- with rails -- looks like it should look.

I would not say one "looks better" than the other. I would say in the appropriate situation, they both are fantastic looks.

[C. Edmund]

Wow -- did find one big new Carolina boat with a rail:

This is a Blackwell 57, new, fished out of Ocean City, Va Beach and Hatteras during the year: http://www.instigatorcharters.com/

[BlackPearl36c]

I know when Ive been out fishing and needed to harpoon a giant tuna I wouldnt have done it with no rail on the bow

[rsmith]

I know when Ive been out fishing and needed to harpoon a giant tuna I wouldnt have done it with no rail on the bow


Back in the day there was a gen1 50 with a 14' swordfish pulpit on the bow.It was on several hatt brochures. The capts name was Bub Eastman. My dad and I fished with him when I was a kid. Almost all the swords were taken by harpoon back then. Never seen a tuna taken by harpoon althow in the old days off block island I saw shcools of volkswagon size tuna running together I guess you could get a shot at one of them. that was when the Russians were fishing 3 mi offshore.When their factory boats dumped their garbage it was like feeding time at seaworld.Glad I saw it once probably never see anything like it again.

[BlackPearl36c]

We use it as a backup if crud hits the fan more than anything. Get the fish next to the boat stick a pole in it and haul her in if there is any gaff mishaps or anything like that the fish is tied to the boat dont have to worry about it taking off and much faster than a tail rope ect..

We use the hand thrown type not the gun. Just find it a little safer and easier to use than a flying gaff with newbie fishermen in the boat. (not that im an ole salt or anything)

[yachtbrokerguy]

I picked up a new 52' Buddy Davis Express at the factory in New Jersey and delivered it to Fort Lauderdale and eventually to Port Arthur, Texas. Like many of these new fish machines there were no bow rails. For the delivery I put dock lines from the two bow cleats up to both legs of the tuna tower just above the windshield. Sure was pretty without the rails, sure was safer with two safety lines. With a pair of 1300hp MANs she tended to jump a bit when going into gear!

[first big boat]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the cover shots on the Hatteras website showing their new 60 with no bow rails or anchor. I prefer at least a shortened rail, extending about a 1/3rd of the way back to help when I'm setting our lines at the marina

[Megalodon45C]

Bow and Hand Rails absolute must for fishing oil platforms here in LA, if you are mooring the boat in any kind of sea you need rails. The boyz with no rails around here are few and far between and tend to be exclusive billfisherman. I vote yes for rails, besides gives me more stuff to polish on rough weekends.
tight lines

[BlackPearl36c]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the cover shots on the Hatteras website showing their new 60 with no bow rails or anchor. I prefer at least a shortened rail, extending about a 1/3rd of the way back to help when I'm setting our lines at the marina


what this one?

http://www.hatterasyachts.com/page.aspx/pageid/27657/page.aspx

[SC_Hat_Man]

To Everyone,
This has been an interesting and informative thread. A new one for me was the limit of using the dingy (or dink) because of the rail height sounded logical, but many of them I've seen have such a shallow draft and gunnel they clear the rail when swung over the side.

I appreciate the topic of getting to the dink or life raft when there is a fire in the lounge or cabin with flames coming out of the windows. Since many fires start inside (engines, generators, etc.), this is a realistic scenario and can come on fast especially if the fuel catches fire. I always go over emergency proceedures with my crew and guests, even though it makes some of them uncomfortable. I hate that the life raft is typically up forward, so my plan will be to go over the top. All PFD's are kept in the locker in the cockpit, so hopefully we can get to them in the case of a fire.

Another new reason for no handrails was the cast net. I too like to throw a cast net (10' radius, 20' diameter), but I've never had any problem clearing the rail so maybe someone's throwing such a big one you cannot have anything in the way. Because there's so much lead with a big net, it's pretty heavy and I get tired so I'm glad for the handrails. I usually leave the casting to my younger folks.

I've seen on the big Hatt's a regular ship's anchor system with a windlass room, but you better have some space for all the line (or chain) and windlass wench. The new Hatt does look flashy and fast without the handrails, but did anyone note where they had the anchor? That new model didn't appear to have an anchor at all. The comment about removing the handrails to plow through the seas more effectively, sounded like they were worried about the drag. When you take waves over the bow, the water adds displacement weight (8lbs/gal) forward which equates to probably 10-100 times more drag than hand rails. Glassing over the forward windows makes since because of all that weight, but if the handrails are in good shape they should survive with merely a salt bath.

After all is said and done, I'm sticking to always having handrails on my boats. Enjoy your Hatts, stay safe and keep a line in the water.

[rsmith]

To Everyone,
This has been an interesting and informative thread. A new one for me was the limit of using the dingy (or dink) because of the rail height sounded logical, but many of them I've seen have such a shallow draft and gunnel they clear the rail when swung over the side.

I appreciate the topic of getting to the dink or life raft when there is a fire in the lounge or cabin with flames coming out of the windows. Since many fires start inside (engines, generators, etc.), this is a realistic scenario and can come on fast especially if the fuel catches fire. I always go over emergency proceedures with my crew and guests, even though it makes some of them uncomfortable. I hate that the life raft is typically up forward, so my plan will be to go over the top. All PFD's are kept in the locker in the cockpit, so hopefully we can get to them in the case of a fire.

Another new reason for no handrails was the cast net. I too like to throw a cast net (10' radius, 20' diameter), but I've never had any problem clearing the rail so maybe someone's throwing such a big one you cannot have anything in the way. Because there's so much lead with a big net, it's pretty heavy and I get tired so I'm glad for the handrails. I usually leave the casting to my younger folks.

I've seen on the big Hatt's a regular ship's anchor system with a windlass room, but you better have some space for all the line (or chain) and windlass wench. The new Hatt does look flashy and fast without the handrails, but did anyone note where they had the anchor? That new model didn't appear to have an anchor at all. The comment about removing the handrails to plow through the seas more effectively, sounded like they were worried about the drag. When you take waves over the bow, the water adds displacement weight (8lbs/gal) forward which equates to probably 10-100 times more drag than hand rails. Glassing over the forward windows makes since because of all that weight, but if the handrails are in good shape they should survive with merely a salt bath.

After all is said and done, I'm sticking to always having handrails on my boats. Enjoy your Hatts, stay safe and keep a line in the water.


I also throw a 9' castnet. I have to do a 3/4 spin to throw it so its whats behind me is usualy the problem not the rail. With a net that size and weight I have to ballance against the rail to get it back aboard especialy if its full of mullet or greenies.Plus my front deck is beat to crap from all the lead marks. I've got to scrub it with soft scrub to get them off after we've been catching bait. I've never seen any of the no rail slick deck guys doing that.Most I know buy their bait. Sometimes from me.LOL