> I built a Coho from their kit last year. I also drilled the small holes to
> start with, then used their recommended jigsaw blade held in a pair of
> vice grips and cut them out by hand. Just take your time and be careful
> and it'll be fine. Someone else mentioned that it took them about an hour
> per hatch, and that's about how long it took me too. The hardest part of
> the job is getting up enough nerve to cut that first hole. :-)

> A few other tips I thought I'd pass along:

> I also went with the don't-drill-holes-in-the-hull method of mounting the
> foot braces. Just be very careful when deciding where to place the blocks.
> I somehow mis-calculated and ended up mounting them about 6" further
> ahead than they needed to be. The foot pegs are adjustable, so they still
> work fine, but I had to adjust them back almost to the limit. If someone
> with shorter legs than me wants to use the boat, they may be out of luck
> in the footpeg department. Having the footpegs too far ahead also meant
> that the forward bulkhead had to go a bit further ahead which required
> some extra trimming to get it to fit.

> Here's another mistake I made with mine. When I was laying the hatch lips
> on the deck in order to trace them to get pattern for the cutout, I
> misread the instructions. Looking at them after the fact, they seem clear
> enough but I still managed to get mixed up. They warn you to be careful to
> leave 3/4" space between the deck chine seam and the edge of the
> hatch lip you are tracing. Make sure you measure that 3/4" to the
> INSIDE of the hatch lip. When I was doing it, I mistakenly thought they
> said the outside of the hatch lip, so the end result is that the hatches
> are about 1-1/2" or so smaller than they could have been. Not a big
> deal, but that slightly larger opening would make it a lot easier to fit
> the 30L dry bag in through the back hatch. As long as I never have to
> load/unload the boat on that river where they fine you for cussin', I'll
> be fine. :-)

> Good luck finishing your Coho. You're going to love it!

Another mistake to watch out for is placement of the 12 holes to attach the hatch webbing on a Coho. After carefukly studying the manual,I thought I understood things and drilled mine above the deck chine seam (as a couple of the photos show) instead of below it, as I belive was intended. I know I could fill in these holes and drill new ones in the right places, but I think I'll try it first this way. All I need to do is replace a few of the 3/4-inch bolts with 1-inch and it looks like it should work.

Has anyone else tried it this way?