My view from the other side of the isle.....

As a SOF builder I have no hatches on my personal boats and I have never missed not having hatches. I can have built them with hatches, I built myself a boat with hatches to prove a concept and I found I never used them. If I were to start camping you bet I would want them!

For day paddles I often carry a small soft sided cooler with food, blue ice packs and maybe a cold bottle of water. A second Camelback bottle and the cooler both rest between my knees in the cockpit no problem. I can get out without a problem. I like that we can stop and I get to my supplies without getting out of the boat.

However if I were building a stripper I would put them in, at the minimum I would have hatch in the bulkheads but I can't imagine the bow storage would be useful because it would be so hard to access.