Going in circles

Next up is hatches and hatch covers. I’ve got to get these sorted before I can really start in on preparing to glue in the cockpit sole and seat tops.

The guidance on hatches from the scamp community, as far as I can tell, is:

• The beckson style hatches tend to leak a little bit

• Armstrong style hatches tend to leak a little less, if at all

• The ptwatercraft style hatches (which are no longer available) are hard to install but are watertight if you install them correctly

• In general, the fewer hatch openings you have the more watertight your boat will be

What I’ve learned from my kayaking days in regards to hatches is:

• Watertightness doesn’t really matter. Put everything in a dry bag before you put it in your hatch.

• Everything else equal, the larger the hatch opening size the easier it is to use

• Hatches with no deck hardware look way better and shed water better

All of that said, here’s what I’ve decided for my hatches:

• I’m going to use one beckson style small hatch over the watertank. This is big enough to put my hand through to fill/drain the water tank, as well as get at the centerboard pin if I need it. At least for the water tank I like the idea of a clear lid so I can easily tell with a look the state of the water tank.

• For areas that can’t take a bigger hatch opening, I’ll use a 6" Armstrong style hatch.

• Elsewhere I’m going to make my own hatches with bungee hold down systems (often used in kayaks) to get a hardware free deck experience on the outside (at the expense of some obstructions on the inside space)

So first things first, it was time to cut some circles.

The easiest way that I know of to cut a perfect circle larger then what a hole saw can do is with a router and a template base for it. My router was a bit too big for the size of holes I needed to cut, but I was able to borrow an absolutely excellent trim router from the Southeast Seattle Tool Library. I don’t know how I stumbled on those guys originally, but talk about an amazing resource. They’re great.

To do this, you remove the base that comes attached to the router and put on your own. Then the distance between either the inner edge of the router bit (if you want to keep the cutout) or the outer edge (if you want to keep the empty hole) and a screw or nail put through your base at the center of your hole becomes your radius. Start cutting.

First set of hatches to cut was for the sealed flotation chambers on either side between b7 and the transom. I didn’t want these on the seat tops as I figured they’d be more in the way there and having them on the seat longitudinals might be better anyway in the case of a capsize. Armstrong hatches would be eaisest here, but I wasn’t sure what size would work best so…

This was a little more difficult to cut then it needed to be since I couldn’t quite sweep the router all the way around - there wasn’t enough room for it at the bottom of the cockpit. So I had to cut the last little bit out by hand, but it worked pretty well.

Next up was the water tank. I wanted to make sure I positioned the hole exactly over the drain plug for the water tank, while also making sure I could easily reach the centerboard pin.

I also realized that I needed an access hatch between b6 and the false bulkhead that forms the back of the footwell, as there are limber holes in that bulkhead, meaning all the water from the aft part of the cockpit under the sole will drain into there, but no easy access to pump it out without a hatch. Another Armstrong hatch seemed like the best and easiest fit there.

And of course with all of these I’m also cutting out backing rings for installation on the backside of each hole to help stiffen up the hatch access hole itself. While these are probably only necessary for beckson style hatches that screw in, I decided I’d do it for the armstrong ones as well.

Before I start gluing anything though I’m going to start in on cutting my kayak style hatches into the seat tops and cockpit sole next.