: 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?

Allow me to over engineer this. First lets take some 1/8th inch hose and fit it through both bulk heads, epoxy in place and run to the left or right side of the cockpit. Next take a tee and place it in the line in the cockpit, then on the free side add push valve 62475k13 from Mcmaster-Carr. This will allow you vent both spaces with out allowing water into them. This also would allow you to use a negitive pump (use to deflate rafts) to take a vacuum on the spaces while transporting to prevent hatches from flying loose. Now you could really get out of hand and put a presurized system in place using a one liter plastic soda bottle fitted with a tire valve and 1/8inch barbed fitting. You simply pump this up and place air actuated valved at each bulkhead that vent when you press the button!

Emmett