Do any of you know if the survivability is increased and/or physical damage is decreased if you are behind a console?

Saw the Cedar Creek thread and I think the passenger suffered the most injuries. Noticed the boat was single console and started wondering if a passenger console would help or hurt.

Entirely too many variables to answer that. A lot of things happen to the human body when a collision happens. So many other details and factors play a part in any outcome. I have worked incidents where the amount and severity of damage was very high yet the occupants walked away with no injuries then have had minor looking collisions end up fatal.

Since seeing that I’ve been thinking about the single console from an accident perspective too. My current boat is a single and I’ve owned one more. Hit a stump at 30 mph in the previous single console I had and my partner ended up on the front deck by the trolling motor. I love the extra room of the single console, but when things go wrong the dual might give the passenger better odds. Once everything comes out there will be an opportunity for all of us to learn something from this, no matter how experienced of a boater you may be life can turn upside down in a split second.

Ask yourself if you would rather be sitting behind a console or nothing if having a head on type wreck.....give me the console if I'm a passenger!

Could also go back to Florida when the co-angler was swept out of a single console Ranger and ended up being found dead days later. But in reality, the number of boat wrecks is pretty small.


If anyone really wants to look for faults or preventions, it appears that many accidents are during tournaments anyways, so...maybe guys just need to be safer and quit taking it to the extreme when fishing them.

Running in fog on plane, putting your life on faith in electronics, what could possibly go wrong?

My last few boats have been double console, I fish with the wifey and want her to have as much protection as possible, sometimes I drive like i stole the boat.

Point and send it!

I’ve ran on electronics, in the fog at Whitney, one time. I didn’t realize how intense it was until I made it to where I wanted to go. I was actually dizzy and stumbling to the front deck. I think my heart rate and blood pressure must have been through the roof. My eyes were the size of golf balls from staring at a zoomed in map. My partner was scared white. He said he wasn’t ever riding with me again.

It’s like driving a car wide open, blindfolded and someone telling you when to turn.

Never again. I don’t care what’s on the line.

What does that have to do with single versus double console?

I'm 100% Guilty of this!! its about to change for me and needs to!!

100% Agree

Sometimes you do drive like you stole it . I followed you into Kickapoo during a top six on Palestine . ..But I was right there with you until your rooster tail started drowning us ..lol!!!

It is a wonder that there weren't boat accidents at Monticello over the years. Maybe there were some. The fog along with an inexperienced boater could have really spelled disaster. We were at the railroad bridge one day and a friend of ours who we knew was on the lake idled over and he was freaking out. He had been idling under the highway bridge near the buoys on the power plant side and a guy came within just a few feet of the back of his boat WHILE ON PLANE. He veered off and shut down. The guy didn't know he was coming up on the highway bridge in the heavy fog!

Absolutely nothing but there is always someone ready to throw a jab in............

^^^^THIS..