Yo Jim

Pygmy themselves should have a few ideas. My idea would be ugly, I haven't tried it yet (per say) but would work pretty well: Just make a mini version of your cockpit. Make it round. Cap the coaming with a piece of ply and secure it all with a shower-cap type spray skirt.

My inspiration came last evening when I launched my Guillemot S&G and gave it a bit of a work out in 15 knot winds and 2 foot chop. Very splashy. My flush hatch designed with a Nick Schade shape using a George McQuade hatch lip system and secured in leidy lid fashion looks stunning and works pretty good, but leaked a little. I concede that the leidy lid bungies could be tighter and a piece of weather sealing will help. So to be fair this was the first trip out for the hatch and it was testig conditions.

But the take home message for me was that the front deck/cockpit took more water than the aft deck and the cockpit/sprayskirt(with me in it) was bone dry. So this is one of the reasons why I am suggesting the mini cockpit hatch system.

My british seagull outboard motor powered racing catamaran is essentially two down river racers bolted together. In its current configuration I sit between them in a pod. So the cockpits of the river racers are empty. I cap them in the fashion that I am promoting with a shaped piece of ply and made a shower spray skirt for them. They stay dry despite a fair amount of spray, so at that level the idea works.

Good luck

Pete