Cobaltchat.com

I find the soft sided coolers to be way easier overall. That's the one wife job when we are getting ready to take the boat out. Plus my kids and guests can't seem to ever open a compartment seat (or close it) correctly. So I like to keep them out of there just to get a drink. My 6 year old can throw me a beer out of the soft sided cooler in 10 seconds. That would be a 5 minute affair if it was inside a built in cooler, and involve way more explanation.

At the end of the day after parking the boat, I jump in and hand the wife and kids the towels, beach bag, and cooler, and I can focus on getting the boat ready to cover and not deal with random ice and leftover drinks. My goal is zero water in the boat and the end of the day as I need to cover it. So bilge plug is pulled and drained on the ramp, wet life jackets get hung to dry, and the tubes or inflatables get laid out to dry. Still takes 30 minutes to put it away, but don't need to worry about a cooler to deal with and dry as well.

To the OPs point about passengers having to get up to access stuff under the front seats; I think that is the case on every boat out there. All manufacturers put the bulk of the storage under the seats. We put the stuff we don't need to access frequently (life jackets, shoes, towels, mooring covers) under the lift up front seats.

The sunscreen, sunglasses go in the port glove compartment. Drinks come on board in a soft cooler and go under the co pilot seat in the cooler. I put 4 or 5 extra towels under the seat behind the captain's chair.

I don't store anything in the engine compartment - but that space isn't available in the surf model, nor is there space in the ski locker where I usually store the fenders, or anything else that gets wet (life jackets, tow ropes, etc,). That stuff drains to the bilge an dafterwards I remove it to air it out.

I think my first step would be to look at how the switch is wired and see if I could get a different ignition switch that made it easier to shut off the ignition while remaining in accessory on position.

I also wonder if an electrolytic capacitor wired across the power to the glass dash controls would be a good retrofit solution? Buy something rated for 20V or more, and big enough to buy you 10 or more seconds or so of high enough voltage to keep the Garmin powered on while you move the key to the accessory position. I might be tempted to try something like this if I didn't want to fiddle with rewiring the ignition switch:

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/ ... ND/3768589

John

Tgrace showed me on this concern on his boat while we were at TRL with him. That cash stays live for a long time to me. If you turn the key off and back on everything stays live. I really wouldn't see a need to change anything. It's all about changing your habit from your last boat which was diff. That's my 2 cents.

jhnmdahl wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:36 am I think my first step would be to look at how the switch is wired and see if I could get a different ignition switch that made it easier to shut off the ignition while remaining in accessory on position.

I also wonder if an electrolytic capacitor wired across the power to the glass dash controls would be a good retrofit solution? Buy something rated for 20V or more, and big enough to buy you 10 or more seconds or so of high enough voltage to keep the Garmin powered on while you move the key to the accessory position. I might be tempted to try something like this if I didn't want to fiddle with rewiring the ignition switch:

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/ ... ND/3768589

John

I really don’t see the problem with the ignition switch and the glass cockpit. I shut my engine off and turn the ignition switch to the right within a few seconds and voila, the glass stays on.

I didn't think this would be a technical fix or just an adjustment of habit. But like every store or dealership I deal with nowa days, the salesmen or employees just don't research or know there product well enough to help in anyway. Frustrating to say the least.
Thanks to everyone for your input, it has been good advice and things are getting better.
Good salesman or service manager, hey I will definitely find out for you, and if you figure something out before I do let me know. Would love to help out the next guy. Never says anyone these days.

I totally agree on lack of sales people/service training.
I bought my first Cobalt (and so did my brother) from lodders marine in Cinci.
Found their service and knowledge lacking big time. I kept teaching the sales people when I went in there.
So for my R7 went to Travis Marine in Knoxville, even with all the research I have done their sales people were able to teach me stuff and really helped me design the Cobalt I really wanted.
They continue to be a great resource and glad I found them.

Norris_Boating wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:33 pm I totally agree on lack of sales people/service training.
I bought my first Cobalt (and so did my brother) from lodders marine in Cinci.
Found their service and knowledge lacking big time. I kept teaching the sales people when I went in there.
So for my R7 went to Travis Marine in Knoxville, even with all the research I have done their sales people were able to teach me stuff and really helped me design the Cobalt I really wanted.
They continue to be a great resource and glad I found them.

That's good to hear. I think if your dealer is on the water and they use the boats themselves they know much more about them. If you just sit in the office you don't learn crap. There is so much on these boats It's not easy unless you use them.

Yeah, my dealer is not worth a flip. We are considering contacting Cobalt to switch our servicing dealer to another in Nashville TN. We dealt with this same dealer with our previous boat and had the same issues, but we where held to a sales territory for Cobalt so had to order from them. Huge mistake, is an understatement.