> On my cape charles, the hatches have never sealed. I added plywood layers
> to the outside of the hull, built it up 1/4" around the perimeter of
> the hatch. The cover extends over that, with gasket. The straps didnt
> seal, and I went to shockcord inside. It looks nice, is a hassle to
> remove, and leaks worse. Trial and error, I said in another post. Mostly
> error in this case.

> An internal hold down line would work well in the front, the bulkhead is
> right there and it would not interfere with storage. In the back, I'm
> about ready to find some stainless T-nuts and simply bolt the thing down.
> I'm fishing for better answers... Or a source of stainless T-nuts. Dzus
> fasteners wont work, the interior of the hatch has a beam there. Softer
> gasket will help, but I doubt it will solve the problem.

Don

I'm no artist but here goes ,I don't know if this would work in your case but it works fine for me, accept I will probably put another latch arrangement on the other end of the hatch opening as well, connected together with some sort of pully arrangement so both ends get pulled down ,I have this on both my flush hatches and only had problems with the screw eyes pulling the strands of bungee out around the threads but 5 or 6 drops of crazy glue on the ends of the bungee wick up in between the strands and I haven't had this problem since, I have the other end of the line tied to a stainless hook that I just clip on to my cheek plate just below the cockpit rim ,nothing fancy but it sure pulls those covers down tight with very little force. I considered many configurations before I settled on this but didn't want to drill holes through my deck or covers ,those solid stainless car antennas are tough don't even try to bend them cold they bend nicely when heated with a propane torch . I glued some thin hardwood strips under the opening lip to act as sliding surface for the rod

later Bill