Re: ches 17 and leaky hat

Posted by Kurt Maurer on Jul 29, 2005

External straps do not work well with flush hatches -- NEWS FLASH!!! What's needed is some sort of (more) direct downward pressure.

Adding a couple of rails to the hatch cover tops can provide some oomph for your straps to make use of. Make 'em at least 3/4" tall, is my advice, and always use the aft hatch as your benchmark because it's always a flatter situation in need of more leverage. Anything that works there will work even better on the forward hatch.

The dogs, I assume, are the toggle thingies the Arctic Hawk sports. If so, LeeG is highly enthusiastic about 'em, and caused me to try 'em on my Cormorant hybrid, in a situation very similar to yours, I'll wager. Result: I am nowhere near as hot on them, but still love Lee anyway, somehow.

Jay Babina is likewise nuts about his approach, see:

http://www.outer-island.com/FlushHatches.html

I tried this also. Yawn.

I have, for the moment anyway, settled back on the internal bungee thing, per Ross Leidy's classic brainstorm. See:

http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/buildingInfo/holddowns.htm

I believe the Moby Latch is the equal to the immediate above, although I haven't yet tried it myself. Can't find the link to it, try Google. Sorry.

I have also added a small weatherstrip to the hatch cover itself, to meet the flange gasket, and have achieved the best results yet.

Please know that I routinely paddle an ultra low riding Greenland machine in nasty deck washing seas, and hang out upside down half the time to boot. I also suck at making watertight hatches, but, as they said in Monty Python, I'm getting better.

Cheers, Kurt

In Response to: Re: ches 17 and leaky hat by david on Jul 29, 2005

Replies:

• Re: ches 17 and leaky hat by Ray on Jul 30, 2005
  • Re: ches 17 and leaky hat by Moe on Jul 30, 2005
    • asking for solutions by LeeG on Jul 30, 2005
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  • perfection by LeeG on Jul 30, 2005
    • Re: perfection by Moe on Jul 30, 2005
      • survival vs function time by LeeG on Jul 30, 2005
        • Re: survival vs function by Moe on Jul 31, 2005
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