Ken

I will be drilling the same holes in my boat. I don't know if you want to do it this way but when I drilled the holes for my recessed deck fittings I used a Forstner bit for my boat I ended up having two of the holes drift out of location - no more than 1/16" though. When I drilled the same holes in my wife’s boat - the Guillemot - the first one that I drilled walked an embarrassing amount. So I went to the local hardware and picked up for around $10.00 a really nice hole saw - 1.1/2" in diameter. Drilled the rest of the holes in about 1/10 the time and kicked myself for not getting a hole saw sooner. I found that I had to drill the pilot diameter drill through first because if I didn’t the pilot wanted to grab the inside of the hull as it broke through. This caused the hole-saw to be sucked into the hull causing some small chipping to occur. Once I predrilled the pilot holes through it worked flawlessly. The holes ended up being 1.515 this made a perfect fit for getting thickened epoxy around the fitting. As a result of this I’m buying a hole-saw for drilling my grab loop holes. I will use the skewer alignment technique as earlier posted. If you decide to use a holes-saw please drill some test holes in a piece of scrap wood first.

Regards, Mike Sundman

P.S. let me know what route you took.