This seems like the sensible, safe way to go.
I would be uncomfortable with a wheelchair passenger
in my low freeboard 18 ft bass boat, far less so in my 15 ft sail boat
hull.

On the other hand, my big old i/o work boat at 20 feet and 3 ft of
free board, with a clear deck would handle a wheel chair
safely.

Brian W

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:05:58 -0500, "beachnut"
wrote:

I would go for a larger bass boat since it is wide and relatively
stable, and eliminate
the wheelchair, and replace it with a special seat on a slide,
two rails on the length of the boat, so the height would
be low and the center of gravity therefore low.
. The seat could spin around,
you could get anywhere on the boat. If you had dock
access you could put in a swing-out crane so someone
could drive up in his handicapped converted vehicle,
operate the crane, lift himself out of the wheelchair on the
dock, get into the boat and take off..

"ahop" wrote in message
. com...
Can anyone tell me how I would go about converting a small 14 foot
boat for a wheelchair passenger - and is there any companies in the uk
that specialise in this.

I don't think 14 ft is to short. I have in front of me a study plan for 15
ft centre console plywood fishing boat (Good Enough 15 from Scott Sprague,
Paulsbo WA, USA) with a small cabin enclosing the console which could
accomodate a wheel chair. My cousin has been a parapalegic ever since a
car crash at the age of 16 and has a boat and cottage. The boat is the
same sort of V-bow flat run centre console planing skiff. I've only seen
photos of the cousin's boat. That boat's probably 18 ft. It has to have
the volume and freeboard to handle the large waves on the big shallow lake
at his cottage.


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