I built an Arctic Tern and had the same misgivings about cutting holes in that sleek-looking, swoopy deck, so I went with the sea sock. And I disliked it very much. My brother has that boat now, so I don't have to deal with it anymore. I built an Outer Island and went with flush hatches and bulkheads.

The sea sock is reliable as far as not coming off. I've wet-exited in rolling practice and not had the sea sock come off along with the spray skirt. Holes are likewise not a real problem -- it's made of durable nylon. But the sea sock is a pain for a number of reasons.

1) If you want to adjust the footpegs, you have to remove the sock. Not a really big deal, but I have a bulkhead-shaped piece of 3" Minicell foam in the foot end of the sock which keeps the thing off my legs, and taking it out with the sea sock and wedging it back in place afterward is a pain. On the plus side, having that nice, thick, cushy block of foam down there makes for a comfortable footrest.

2) The sock has a tendency to bunch up on you as you slide in. This is a mild nuisance under calm conditions, but when you go out in wavier conditions, you want to get your spray skirt snapped on as quickly as possible, and not monkey with tugging at your sea sock.

3) You're right that storage is a problem, too. On my Tern I kept my bilge pump, paddle float, and sponge under the bungees on the aft deck. Since I don't have the sea sock on my Outer Island, I can keep my pump behind one cheek plate, the sponge behind the other, and keep the paddle float behind the seat. If you put your rear bulkhead a couple inches rear of the cockpit coaming you have a place to put lunch, but remember that the more space in the cockpit, the more you have to pump out when doing a wet re-entry.

You might go with hatches like the one shown here -- Eric Schade's 'Merganser'. All that is visible is a knob, which is connected to a threaded rod which raises a draw bar under the hatch lid, drawing it down onto the lip. A kit is available from Eric's website.

One more hint: put in 2 hatches. If you only put in an aft hatch and later find you need to carry a bunch of gear, having all that weight only in the rear will throw off the handling of the boat. If you're just carrying lunch and a dry shirt back there, you'd be O.K., but you'd be better off keeping the boat balanced if you need to carry a larger load...

Dean