Cobaltchat.com

I am looking to buy the factory wake tower bimini for a 2004 Cobalt 240. I have only seen it once during my searches for a Cobalt 240 as well as the picture in the 2004 Cobalt owner's manual (pictures attached). I have called local Cobalt dealer and the Cobalt customer support and they basically said good luck.

I have now dropped my boat off at a stainless steel fabricator that does a lot of marine railings, broken bimini tubes, etc.. They stated that they have done a similar project before. They are going to measure things up and provide me a quote next week for just the bimini frame and mounts, canvas will come from a separate fabricator.

I have a feeling it's going to be pricey, so I thought I would reach out to the forum to see if anyone has any other thoughts on sourcing that OEM bimini.

Thanks in advance,

e-glow

Boy did you check on the tower manufacture websites. Samson, monster and others.

Thanks for the suggestion BBP!

Yes, I checked all of the other tower manufacturers and their stock and universal biminis, but none of look like the Cobalt factory tower bimini. I really like the look of the oem one. I have been looking off and on since I got the boat last summer.

Update.

I went to a custom stainless fabricator just north of Toronto in Barrie and got them to pattern and fabricate a wake tower bimini frame. They used 1" 16 gauge stainless tubing (matched the curve of the windshield) and welded a mounting tab to my existing stainless wake tower. for the brace They did an excellent job and said if I wanted to add extensions that could be easily done as well. Cost was $850CAD plus taxes.

Now need to find someone to do the canvas (before summer is over)

estoglow wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 6:45 am Update.

I went to a custom stainless fabricator just north of Toronto in Barrie and got them to pattern and fabricate a wake tower bimini frame. They used 1" 16 gauge stainless tubing (matched the curve of the windshield) and welded a mounting tab to my existing stainless wake tower. for the brace They did an excellent job and said if I wanted to add extensions that could be easily done as well. Cost was $850CAD plus taxes.

Now need to find someone to do the canvas (before summer is over)

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Hey thanks for the update EG. lookin’ good.
Appreciate the pics too.

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Very cool. And for another 800 you will have her done. Nice.

Okay the bimini is now all done. The local fabricating company did a great job (turn around in 1 week in July) and added zippers for future expansion for front windshield extension, side and back panels. The expansion capability added some significant cost and he gave me a plastic bag with the other halves of the zippers. After installation, he cut off the extra tension straps he added as the fit was so tight that they would not be needed.

No need to remove for towing as the top is good to 70mph (if you want to tow that fast). The price for the canvas was 1600 CAD so there might have been some mid-summer uplift pricing, but I am really happy with it (and he turned it around in a week - priority costs as well). I called three other companies and they were all working with 6-8 week lead times (we had a tough winter and apparently lots of boats got trashed from snow loads).

The cool thing about owning a boat is that it makes everything else seem cheaper.

Pictures attached.

best,
estoglow

Looks fantastic

Thanks! I did decide to go a high as possible to give max. headroom (currently - not remotely close to having to duck). However, if I ever wanted tower speakers then I would probably have to hang them off the sides of the wake tower.

Looks very nice.

Mind if I ask what you did with the Bimini top if your boat had one?

@dudley67 - I still have the original bimini that came with the boat. Fabric is in good shape, no broken poles, but the 2 of 4 straps that hold it down need to be replaced (nothing complicated or expensive). The two straps that tension the bimini itself are in good shape.

Sorry for the late response, but i wasn't sure if I had kept it or not - and couldn't check until I got up to the cottage.