: Wow!

: If the magnets are just too powerful, why not apply a coat or two
: of paint or varnish over them?

They're not too powerful I don't think since I can pry them off with a screw driver, in fact I'm a little concerned that they might not be strong enough. I used a lot of them (40 per hatch, except the day hatch which has 16) but they're only 1/16" thick since I used 3/16" strips (and didn't want to risk coming through the deck) and by time you get the boat sanded down the deck thickness is about 5/32" in places. The funny thing is putting in all of these magnets sounds like a lot of work, but in reality they take considerably less time to install than internal bungies. The most work is drilling the recesses in the hatches, the lips are easy since I leave 4 un-cut sections when I cut out the hatches for alignment reasons and they stay that way until all the hatch lips are complete. I drill the magnet recesses in the hatch while they are still thusly attached to the deck by these 4 narrow uncut sections on the 4 corners of the hatch, and then glass over the inside of the hatch to bury the magnets and strengthen the hatch. When I do the lip lay-up I use shelve liner as a mold release over the entire hatch area, then I put down a layer of 5.7 oz twill CF around the edge of the hatch, a layer of 4 oz glass, and them just drop the magnets onto the lay-up...the magnets find their mate in the hatches automatically since they are already installed. I then lay up 3 more layers of glass and another CF, let it cure for 12 hours, pop them off and I'm done with hatch retainers. I think I only have a total of 4 hours per boat in magnets and hatch lips. I have to thank John Caldeira for the hatch-tabs, that is such an elegant idea!
I am putting tethers on all of them of course, but I want them to be watertight too. Time will tell, sea trials are only 2 weeks away. Oh yeah, rolling in 34 degree water....probably more of a test for me than the boats :-)

And I have to say as so many have said before, this forum rocks! Almost every good idea I have ever found has been gathered here from so many of you guys! And whether you change the forum format or not Nick, we all have you, Ross, CLC, and other forum gurus to thank for this most excellent way of exchanging ideas.

The pic is of an Iggy I built from plans made available by Bryan Hansel, someone else I found on this forum. Great boat in rough water! The knee bump-out is an absolute nightmare for forming strips without staples.....but we endeavor to persevere, don't we?

BK