Your cleats should be back plated and can certainly pull more than 2 per board. Heavy weed whacker line will give some and act as a shock absorber for you. I pull 4-6 tandems per side from front cleat with no problems. Its not ideal but has worked for me for years.

 

The cleats won't be your problem. The planer line being too low to the water will. I'll bet that once the planers are deployed, the line to the planer will be hitting the water about 20' out from the boat. That will limit how far you can run out your clips for your fishing lines.

Get 'em up higher somehow or you may as well leave the planers home.

 

cleats should be plenty strong.

depending on how good your boards are, and your boat setup, you may try to get away with them on the bow.

dont worry bout the cleats, experiment and find the best setup for your boat situation. heck you might even be able to run more than 2.

 

I would go with your bow cleats.

I don't understand why some people think planer boards have to be high. I have been pulling mine off of my cleats for a few years and have done just fine.

 

I run my homemade boards off the cleats on my 18ft center console and they run pretty good even in a little chop. I agree that having the lines higher does help to keep the lines outta the water and help to be able to put boards out farther. However it is not a must, I can run 2 to 3 lines off each of my planers out at 35'-50'. I have seen people run boards off of a centrally located pole in the front of the boat but I never wanted to bolt a base to my boat to hold the pole in place. Here is one planer board pole on cabela's web store. Cabela's -- Bert's Custom Tackle Planer Board Mast Systems

 

I didn't mention that I don't have a t-top either. Like Francis, I've never had a problem pulling multiple rods with boards out.

 

With a good set of boards-you should be able to use 50-75 feet of cord.The best way is a high mount but pulling from a cleat works fine.You can easily pull 3-4 rods with 50 feet of planer line.I'd put the rod lines closer to the board-the farther away from the noisy boat-the better :yes:. Skip

 

My situation

A couple years ago I built a port-side planar board. It works
fine even though I attach it at my cleats. The problem is
that the lines won't slide down the weed wacker line very
far, maybe only 20 feet or so. The higher attachment point,
the farther the line with the lures will slide toward the planar
board.

 

Planner boards

I built planner boards last year for a 24' Century and decided to make two board planners instead of three board planners to try and cut down on space.... they worked well and we caught fish on them but 1-2 times a trip they would dive on us.... this year i am going to build three board planners instead of two..... any sugestions....
thanks,
nick

 

Just one suggestion

Buy 'em from Skip!

 

Thanks for the help. My boards are actually from Skip and they are great!!!

 

I have been using my set of planers for several seasons now and have not mounted the line higher than the top of the gunwale. I have cleats just about even with the helm and I have had great success with attaching them there. I have not explored a way of mounting poles on the boat. I have about 50ft of line and can get 3 rods off each side. They produce and work good for me since I have no T-Top or Planer board pole.

 

When I built mine I used a three 5 1/2' wide boards. They were not stable and would roll over and go to the bottom. I later used an three 8'"boards and they work great ever in rough water. I think two boards will work just as well as long as they are 24" to 30" apart.

 

Nick add dive shield to the front of the boards and that will stop the diving.