I bought my S4 in 2023 and never regret it. The issue at hand was my 80lbs black Labrador, Zoey. She loves the water, but not only getting her in and out of the S4 was an issue, but even more though keeping her safe on the bow platform. Solution: a bigger platform with safety rails.
\nI made the platform out of 1\/2 inch plywood with stringers underneath for stability. Painted with wood sealer used for decking. The top is EVA foam board for boats for anti-slip and esthetics. The rail is build of 1\/2\u201d electric conduit pipe. It\u2019s readily available at big box hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot) and cheap. The company Maker Pipe makes the connectors (painted white) to the base and the shrink tubes (blue). The top rail is one piece of conduit pipe bent to shape with a standard conduit tube bend tool – available at the hardware store. There are many YouTube videos about how to bend conduit. It is very solid.<\/p>\n
Click images to enlarge –<\/em><\/p>\n How did I cut the shape for the bow? I used a larger piece of cardboard, flipped the S4 over, laid it down on the cardboard. Now I cut a 1-1\/2 piece of ply, laid it against the S4 bow and traced the shape of the bow with a permanent marker onto the cardboard. This created an outline of the bow that was 1-1\/2\u201d wider than the bow. I cut it out and placed it on a 4×8 ft sheet of 1\/2\u201d plywood. I transferred the outline onto the ply and cut the shape with a jigsaw. A little sanding to smooth the edges. I also marked and cut out slots in the S4\u2019s bow as well as the handles (see pictures). For the middle of the three slots I only drilled a hole. I inserted a 6\u201d bolt through that hole, long enough to used a painted piece of 2×2 with a hole matching the bold. This, together with 4 pieces of painted 2×2 underneath the platform conforming to the bow of the S4 (remember the platform is 1-1\/2\u201d wider the S4 bow all around) holds the platform in place. I painted the ply and all wood pieces with 4 coats of sealer. Grey to match the EVA foam pad.<\/p>\n Total cost was less than $150.<\/p>\n I also installed a skinny 3 gallon fuel tank for the 6HP Tohatsu, and a boat cover. My S4 sits outside and in the water throughout summer. Now it is protected from Rain, and dry. Click images to enlarge –<\/em><\/p>\n By Horst Merkle Indiana I bought my S4 in 2023 and never regret it. The issue at hand was my 80lbs black Labrador, Zoey. She loves the water, but not only getting her in and out of the S4 was an issue, but even more though keeping her safe on the bow platform. Solution: a … Continue reading “S4 Upgrade for my Dog”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":26544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26561,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26542\/revisions\/26561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Dog-platform-top-view-640x853.jpeg\")
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\nFor that I installed hooks on the outside of the S4 to hook in 1\/4\u201d bungee-rope. The cover is made of a old boat cover cut to size. I installed grommets along the perimeter and wove bungee cord through. The tend is held up by a three pole support made of 3\/4\u201d PVC pipes which fit into the holes in the center seat of the S4.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/pole-for-boat-cover-rotated.jpeg\")
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