carbon fiber lever

Posted by Bill Whitcomb on Jan 15, 2005

I've made a couple boats with front hatches which are held down with a CF golf shaft/lever. The shaft goes thru the front bulkhead using PVC plumbing (Home Depot) fittings to provides a piviot point. A ping pong is glued to shaft and rides on a round square cut seal inside the PVC piece. Inside the cockpit I glued to the deck beam a hook made out of okume to secure the shaft which holds down the hatch. Under the hatch it goes thru a hole in a vertical piece of 6mm okume glued transfersly to he hatch (which also stiffens the hatch). It's a waterproof arrangement thru the bulkhead and in no way interfers with paddling. It allows you to remotely pull down or lift up the hatch. Sound crazy, well it works well and is cheap. The golf shaft is free from a golf repair place and the plumbing fittings cost about 5 dollars. Sound exotic? It's just a lever which was invented thousands of years ago. Regardless of how you hold the hatch down the important thing is that it nicely conforms to the deck gasket. Good luck. Bill

In Response to: Flush Hatches Hold Downs by Travis Allen on Jan 12, 2005

Replies:

• lever : different ++ by Lloyd on Jan 18, 2005
  • Re: lever : different ++ by Rich P on Jan 19, 2005
    • Re: lever : different ++ by Bill Whitcomb on Jan 19, 2005