I've been trying to ignore it but its gotten into my brain and it's driving me crazy. The seat needs to be moved slightly, twisted and centered a bit, (guessing 1 inch) to be straight. The new holes in the plastic seat will need to be very close to existing holes-or maybe overlapping a bit. The boat is a plastic WS Zephyr with the Phase 3 XP seat.
Is this doable? Do I need to replace the plastic seat in light of the hole locations - or is there a way to deal with that? I see a video on WS site that shows how to remove the seat. While I am at it should I consider moving the seat toward the bow or stern? How to make that decision? It is a brand new boat - should I be talking to WS re doing the work on warranty - or at least providing parts?
Also, is it possible that the seat can be adjusted just by loosening bolts, moving a bit, and tightening things back up again?
review
are you saying the seat is crooked to one side but the holes are symmetrical and in the right place? Is it possible to loosen/remove the screws to one and redrilling with the correct position?
The seat is crooked
because it is over to one side slightly and also twisted slightly aiming to the port side. I can't tell if it is adjustable without re-drilling, hoping for a response from someone with experience with these seats before I start disassembling the seat. The holes in the hull look to be in the right place and centered. Don't have it apart so don't know about holes in seat itself. I would need to take it all apart to see the holes in the seat. My sincere hope is that the seat is adjustable without removing the whole thing and re-drilling or replacing.
Some Experience
I moved the seat back in a couple of Tempests to keep shins from hitting the coaming. I just moved the seat back a ‘bolt hole’. The seat is held in place with 2 bolts instead of 4. I removed as much of the seat base as was necessary. For me, the boat sits better and behaves better with the seat back a bit.
Do you recall
if the holes in the seat flange or cockpit rim are oversize so as to permit some adjustment? Or are they the same diameter as the bolts?
I think the seat can slide
back and fort by about an inch without any drilling. Not 100% sure since it has been a while since I did this and I sold my Z so can't check. But I think the seat has short channels on top of the side supports and you should be able to just loosen the bolts to slide the seat back and forth. Half an inch on each side will give you enough to rotate to straight hopefully.
If more is needed, you can drill one extra hole so you can reuse one of the existing holes with the new one to get about 1-1/2" or so range...
If I recall, there should be a metal plate or maybe a pair of washers (forgot which it is) on the inside, where the 2 nuts holding the seat from the inside reside. Kind of hard to access, but with a socket wrench with the right size socket (I think 10mm or 9 or 8mm, forgot) you should have no problem. First, remove the hip pads (easy to remove/install) to see the opening in the side support of the seat. Reach up through there with the socket wrench to hold counter at the nut while you use a phillips-head screwdriver on the screws to loosen. No need to remove the screws, I think, just loosen so you can reposition the seat within its sliding range.
More than likely (if you remove the nuts completely) you will drop the nuts or washers under the seat, but you can get them out with some wiggling of the hull so they slide out from under the seat.
EDIT. As for moving the entire seat fore or aft, I'd say it depends on how the boat behaves with you in it. In the original factory position, I thought my boat was well balanced in winds: it would go upwind with skeg up and downwind with skeg down and I could dial any heading with some skeg. If you can't do this, you may want to experiment with the trim - if it leecocks, then move the seat forward and if it weathercocks all the time, move the seat to the rear...
It’s Been a Good While…
but I think the cockpit rim has small holes. If I were you I’d be much more comfortable modifying the seat; making bigger holes or drilling new holes, as opposed to doing anything to the boat itself. That said, my first Tempest was plastic and I had the dealer move the seat back. They drilled new holes in the boat and welded shut some old ones. They did a good job and it wasn’t expensive.
Next step is for me to take a close look
and to do that I need to get it inside and warm it up and then get in there and loosen up bolts and see if I can get it straight just by moving it around and retightening. If so I’ll call it good. Thanks guys.