: I've just completed my Coho and I love the looks of it. I'd like to leave it
: without hatches. Any suggestion on Dry bags versus float bags?

2 winters ago I built an Arctic Tern and went witout hatches and bulkheads. I got a sea sock from Pygmy and stuffed a 3"-thick minicell foam false bulkhead in the end, up against the footpegs, to keep it off my legs. I put a float bag in each end as extra security.

I don't like this arrangement for 2 reasons. One is that sitting in a bag isn't real comfortable and you have to do a bit of fanaglin' when sitting down to keep the bag from bunching up. The other is that you can't keep stuff in the cockpit. This means you have to keep your pump, paddle float, sponge, and anything else on deck, which detracts from that nice, sleek look you're trying to maintian. My Outer Island that I just finished (with bulkheads and hatches) has room between the hip plates and the side of the hull to store a pump and sponge on either side. I put my paddle float behind the seat. All these areas are inaccessable when you install a sea sock. You could go with float bags only and no sea sock, but you would still end up with a lot of water inside during a wet entry, and it would take forever to pump out.

Part of me wanted to go without hatches just because it meant speeding up the building process -- I got it into the water sooner. But now I intend to go back and add the hatches. If you want a clean look, check out Eric Schade's business -- Shearwater boats -- for a knob-closed hatch design that he uses on his Mergansers. I did the same on my Outer Island, and it doesn't mess up the deck much, just a small knob sticking up to throw a little bit of spray up. Better than a VCP hatch, in my humble opinion. Eric sells the hardware for these knob-closed hatches for $25.

I guess I rambled off of your question, but I hope this helps, anyway...;-)

Dean