What are your plans for plumbing it?
Pretty amazing how as large as these boats are they came with so little functional storage. Lots of room for improvement in organization.
You're right about that... I've added quite a bit of storage, almost all from ideas I've seen looking through this site.
All the way forward, I'm converting the bow bilge area to anchor storage and about 100' of anchor line. I added a bulkhead under the casting deck to define this area, which also reinforces the deck. It's the place where most people step pretty heavily into the boat when they're coming on from a dock, so the reinforcement will be good. For me, that frees up the entire wide hatch up forward (original fish locker) because that's where I kept the anchor and line previously.
I also added two long compartments on either side of the center console, outboard of each stringer. And a big storage compartment directly under the leaning post, behind the fuel tank and forward of the rear bilge. This one will be a little less convenient to get into, so will be a good spot for utility things, freeing up the other hatches for more frequently used stuff. And then finally the two smaller spots under the seating at the transom.
Regarding livewell plumbing - I don't fish with live bait a lot, so I'm not getting too fancy. There's a Johnson pump mounted directly onto the bilge seacock, which will feed the wash down pump and also supply a discharge directly into the livewell. My previous well had a second pump to assist the discharge out and over the transom. I was constantly trying to balance them. I'm hoping to properly size a gravity discharge opening at the top of the livewell, which will exit out through the transom. I'd like to avoid trying to balance two pumps if I can. No aeration or anything like that, my previous setup did ok without it. Just a circular water flow, in at the bottom and out through the top. The water stays pretty cold up here in NH, and the mackerel hold up for quite a while.
To drain the well empty, will just be a plug out the bottom that will drain the water onto the deck and out through the scuppers.
I'll include some pics when I get to mounting all of that.
Thanks for looking, Paul