Jim,I have the old pedestal (2004 24M), and although it does provide more room in the cockpit than on previous models, I have wondered how much load it could withstand in the event of a severe heel. - After all, it isn't all that wide at the base. For example, would it support my weight (220 lbs) if I grabbed onto it to avoid falling out of the boat when heeling in bad weather conditions?
"model year". The last 2 characters in the hull number indicate the model year [06 = 2006], while the previous 2 characters indicate the month and year of manufacture [L5 = December, 2005; A6 = January 2006, etc.] . 
During my first year of owning my '03 26m I had to get the pedestal replaced, it snapped off at the base of the flange due to a very poor weld. The new replacement was much beefier and stronger, no problems yet.I have the old pedestal (2004 24M), and although it does provide more room in the cockpit than on previous models, I have wondered how much load it could withstand in the event of a severe heel. - After all, it isn't all that wide at the base. For example, would it support my weight (220 lbs) if I grabbed onto it to avoid falling out of the boat when heeling in bad weather conditions?
When I first tried mounting a compass on the pod I noticed it was pulled way off it's reading so I mounted my hand held on the bulkhead where it works fine. In future I will get a built in bulkhead compass and mount the hand held on the pedestal where I can easily reach it to take hand bearings, once it is moved away from the pedestal to take a bearing it is no longer affected.Changing the subject, I noticed in one of the pictures that the skipper has mounted his compass on top of the pedestal. - I had thought that this wouldn't work well because of possible errors caused by ferric metals in the pedestal, controls, cables, chartreader, etc. Am I wrong, and have others done the same thing?
There are three plexiglass panels held on by screws.Richard O'Brien wrote:Those of you who have the new '06 binnacle. How do you gain access? does the whole black panel come of including the steering wheel? How does that work? It does look like you can add controls without the binding occuring like it does on the 03-5 models.
Mine has a single removable panel on the port side held in place with four screws.Richard O'Brien wrote:Those of you who have the new '06 binnacle. How do you gain access? does the whole black panel come of including the steering wheel? How does that work? It does look like you can add controls without the binding occuring like it does on the 03-5 models.
