The Open-Bridge Convertible Versus the Enclosed Bridge

The choices are varied when deciding if your next fishing boat will sport an open flybridge with a hardtop and crystal-clear enclosure or, perhaps, you’ll opt for a climate-controlled enclosed-bridge command station instead. Although many skippers take sides when it comes to their favorite design, and for no shortage of logical as well as personal reasons, more often than not, it is the owner’s choice that finally decides the matter. Studying the purpose and accommodations of the layout provides a definite view of the benefits, attributes and limitations of each style.

The open bridge today is a far cry from its origins as simply a place to operate the boat with heightened visibility, in spite of being totally unprotected from the environmental elements of sun, wind, salt spray and rain. I recall seeing photographs of old boats from the 1940s and ’50s with flybridges that were minimally equipped, with just a single chair, the wheel, engine controls, and wiring fed through a tube in the roof from the lower station. On the deck, a glass port offered the captain a view of the engine gauges below on the console, while the front and side bridge wings were made of canvas that was secured to metal piping screwed to the roof. Chrome-plated bronze step plates on the house sides and the piping above served as grab points, providing passage to the bridge from the cockpit.