Thanks Bryan, I appreciate the info. One things for sure, the coaming assembly and hatches are definitely places to slow down and consider all the alternatives. Plus I'm going by others experiences, a little common sense and alot of blind luck since I''ve never been in a kayak before.
Ian

: Ian, I used 1/2" diameter X1/16" thick neodymium rare
: eath disk magnets in my latest boat and they hold quite well.
: Because they are so thin I used a lot of them, about every
: 3.5" o.c. One of the nice things is their thin profile
: means I did not have to fillet around them on the hatch lip. I
: wet out 4 oz glass, then 5.7 oz cf, then snapped the magnets in
: place. They imbedded themselves into the 2 layers enough to
: forgo a fillet of thickened epoxy. I then laid up 3 more layers
: of glass and one more cf. I was able to do all three hatch lips
: complete with magnet installation in about 6 hours. I used a
: total of 80 magnets for all three hatches, they add about 7.5 oz
: to the total weight of the boat, probably no more than the
: internal bungee system that I was using on previous boats. The
: other reason for using magnets this thin is I use 3/16"
: strips, and I wanted the magnets to lay flat in the recess I
: made for them in the hatch with 2 Forstner bits (1 with a
: starter tip to locate the hole, 1 with it ground off so I could
: go deeper without coming through the other side). The protective
: glass does not like to go around a raised maget, and I didn't
: like the look of it anyway.

: Bryan