Re: Hatches

Posted by Dan on Dec 14, 2004

Has anyone tried a different type of hatch to the gasket seal type - to me the design seems fundamentally flawed, as it relies on pressure to make the seal. If adequate pressure is not applied, the seal fails, and the boat can take on water. I've been looking for other ideas to use on the WR180 I am building, and was considering laminating a coaming around the hatch to take a soft neoprene cover which would be waterproof, and then putting a wooden cover over the top which would be buckled down. This design seems to be very waterproof on many plastic kayaks, as the hard cover keeps most of the spray off, and prevents the soft cover being knocked off by waves. As long as the elastic on the neoprene cover is tight, no water should get in. The hard cover then needs no pressure as it is not forming the seal, it only protects the soft cover, and thus standard buckles can be used.

I haven't seen this done on a wooden kayak before, so I'm not sure if it would work, although fundamentally it would be just like laminating the cockpit, and a hard cover could be either laminated from thin plywood or bent onto a small frame, like the hatches in the plan are. Has anyone tried this type of set up, or is there anything which would make it unworkable on a wooden kayak?

In Response to: Re: Hatches - better clas by Gary Turner on Dec 13, 2004

Replies:

No Replies.