Ed,
It's not going to be a huge console or anything. The plan was to be 16" wide (that's the same distance between the two boxes, to give you an idea), 36" tall and 18" deep. By keeping it low, we can get around it easier, and being narrow, we can have plenty of walking space on both sides. Removing the boxes will take away storage and seating, but will add more deck room. We can store the electronics (which would currently be stored in one box) on the console of course, another box has safety equipment which can go in the bow, and the other two boxes have gas tanks. We only really need one tank for a day of inshore fishing, so that can either be open on the deck in the stern, or we could build a little box back there to put it in/sit on. Another reason I want a console is because tiller steering a 40hp on that squirrely of a boat especially, is pretty sketchy. I drove the boat around yesterday a little bit, and it just didn't feel comfortable. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but with that extension on there, if I needed to turn sharply in an emergency, it would GREATY impact my reaction time. I know putting in the console WILL effect space and stuff, but I think it's just safer. Plus, it won't be impacting our storage THAT much, as we only really need half that storage. We'll see though, I'm not gonna take a rotary saw to it this afternoon or anything.
-Brian