Modifying the T Top to make it removable/ foldable

[STKE]

Howdy!

I have on my centre console a T Top Pretty much the same as bellow.

I cover my boat with a large tarp to keep both whether and Thieves away. (I park my boat on an easement in front of the house.)

With the wind, it sounds like hell out the front of the house, and I swear one day the whole boat is going to sail down the street.

Any thoughts on making one of these T Tops either Foldable or easily removable/ install

[samsteele115]

A mate with a polycraft has a T top that is easily removable. It just slides in and out of a couple larger metal pipe fittings attached to the console of the boat.

[STKE]

Bought some smaller diameter aluminium tube to make some sleeves for the legs, which I would use some top and bottom bolts and wing nuts for quick release and install.

Cut and drilled the sleeves to size.

Cut the legs about half way for the sleeves, and installed the sleeves. Did a trial fit and it was extremely flimsy.

Soooooo, wasted $30 bucks on some tube, ruined a perfectly good T Top, built a windscreen for the console as I had some perspex, and than to finish up at the end of the day I decided too put my impact driver through my hand.

I think a foldable bimini is on the cards, but I need to find one tall enough that I can stand under.

[kmcrosby78]

Just thought of something that may be worth investigating. Could you cut the vertical uprights at about the height of the top of the console - so you now have a top section and a bottom section. Get some metal pipe that will slot inside the tubing of the bottom half (so obviously a smaller diameter than the existing tubing). Probably drill a hole in your uprights and insert a nut and bolt and use this to stop the insert pipe falling to the bottom.

This would mean that the metal pipe insert is secured in place and sticking out the top at whatever length you wanted it to - you would then lower the top part of the T-top onto these inserts. You'd need to drill holes in the inserts and the uprights (of the top section) - get these holes to line up and then nut and bolt them and your top section would be secured.

Hope that made sense? I think as long as whatever you used as the insert was strong enough it would probably work. The only issue may be, depending on the weight of the top half of your T-top, that it may be fiddly/difficult to lower the T-top onto the inserts however I suspect it would be manageable.

Something else I thought of was that it would be worth popping into a couple of boatyards and looking at some different options - it's a good way to pick up ideas on boat layout, etc and you'd almost certainly come across a couple of foldable T-tops.

Good luck - let us know what you end up deciding on. Cheers.

[kmcrosby78]

Just re-read what you'd already done and realised that your 'sleeves' may have been pretty much what I described - in which case I may have just wasted your time ......

[samsteele115]

Haha it's not easy to explain is it! That's what I meant as well

[STKE]

I know I've seen online some foadable options however they are either two expensive or not suitable.

I reckon I might tough it out for a while without one. It has opened up the boat a bit more.