I never even considered putting a day hatch into the rear deck of a boat for more than two seconds. Why break up that useful space into little boxes?

I like my rear hatches far back enough to get a decent area behind the cockpit for stowage above deck and also to get to the fin box if necessary, but not so far back that it starts to look wrong. Looks count too.

I like my fore hatch to start about three or four inches in front of the front bulkhead, that is as far back as is reasonable.

I sometimes felt that a slightly larger rear hatch could be handy on some of my boats. The further rearward the hatch goes the less width there is so there is a trade off there. Bigger is handier, but one still needs to consider deck lines getting past the edges etc, and also looks. Looks do count too, really, otherwise we would just buy plastic boats.

This last build I considered a hatch into an under-deck compartment in the fore deck between my knees for phone and camera, but not for long. I felt the extra lump under there may stifle my sense of freedom of movement and there would be the problem of getting to it past one's map and whatever else may be bungied to the foredeck.

I like my feet and knees to be fairly upright, so I usually pad out the area from the cheek plates down along as far as my knees... Perhaps a three inch corner from the sheer in. I often wondered if that wasted space could be made into a watertight space that could be entered from above with a long thin hatch. With magnets it would not be too hard. Handy for small items that one doesn't want to have to root around for in the main hatches. Also one is always looking for new ways to add novelty to a project, and of course, to make people scratch their heads.

Of course, every extra feature tends to add weight too, so that needs to be considered too, although such inner additions could be built very light, with carbon, or even strips with very light glass.

This could turn into an interesting discussion. I hope there are loads of thoughts and ideas shared on it.

Always ready to throw my opinions around.

Et