: I recently launched on a hot day, only to scramble off after a few minutes
: when a thunderstorm hit. When I got home,I noticed the hull was really
: sucked in- no damage, but it looked awful, and I had to drill a 1/16"
: hole in the bulkhead in order to pull the stern hatch off.

: Question: If I drill over size, seal wood with epoxy, and re-drill a
: 1/16" hole, does this compromise flotation in a lengthy swamp? even a
: 1/16 hole will pass some water, but maybe this is trivial. Any simple
: hardware solutions? Something like a detergent bottle push-pull cap seems
: ideal- can close it with a toe (bow) or hand (stern), but would prefer to
: screw a bulkhead fitting rather than try to glue polyethylene. Anything
: more complicated would be hard to close once out on the water (have
: noticed sucked-down hatches before once out on cold water). Also, failure
: of a larger closure would leave a large leak- better just to have a known,
: small one?

With a 1/16th inch hole you probably won't have a problem with a prolonged swamp. Assuming that the water could flow freely into your "sealed" area it would take a long time to fill through a hole that small. Try these two experiments with an empty milk jug: Drill your 1/16th hole in the side of the jug, near the bottom, fill the jug with water while you hold a finger over the hole to seal it off. When the jug is full, uncover the hole and time how long it takes for the jug to empty. That is the time it takes for a gallon to pass through a 1/16th hole. double the time and you'ld get 2 allons through that hole.

Oh, I said there were TWO experiments, didn't I. Well for the second experiment, fill the jug like before, but before you take your finger off the hole, screw the cap back on the jug. Again, you'll want to time how long it takes for the jug to empty. You can probably go take a nap while you wait for the jug to empty. With the cap on the jug, the water won't come out of the jug very easily.

The same principle applies to a kayak with a tiny bulkhead vent. Unless you can get air out of the compartment at the same time -- and the small size of the vent makes that difficult -- you can't get water into it. Even if you flood the cockpit completely you will get seepage, but not a flood of water into your sealed compartments. This assumes the hatches are on and fitting tightly. If the hatches are off, of course, you have a much larger problem than the 1/16th hole!

You can go for a larger hole and plug it with a cork.

Drill an appropriately sized hole in the cork and you can plug that hole with a golf tee when you wish to, and leave it open at other times. If the cork is big enough, you can drill a shallower hole in it (one which does not go all the way through the cork) to store the tee. This can double as a fishing bobber. You can carry a spare cork easily, too.

Corks are available in hardware stores in many sizes, and you can drill a hole to match whatever cork you find -- but I'd go for a hole in the bulkhead that was about as big as the opening in a bottle of wine. There are lots of once-used corks available for free in that size.

Hope this helps

PGJ