: She'll have deck lines for sure. I have only capsized once in the
: Missouri River but was sure glad to be able to get a hold on the
: boat quickly.

: I have no problem leaving the hatches off, it just hurts to cut
: into that curly maple! But the open space fore and aft is almost
: 8 feet. Longest float bags I can find are 47 inches from NRS
: (use them in my Guillemot). Any suggestions.
: t.s.

Actually I'd put bulkheads in and not put deck hatches in, instead I'd install 3" Beckson hatches in the bulkheads, then you have access to at least allow you to see if there is a problem and you don't have to play with float bags. The bulkheads tend to stiffen the deck some and with really thin strips used there that doesn't sound like a bad idea either. The other possibility is to make single skin fiberglass bulkheads that you can see thru (sorta), they are just laid up on a sheet of release film (plastic sheet) I use window insulation mylar, they heat shrink so it's easy to get a perfect flat surface to lay the bulkhead on and that plastic releases easily from the epoxy. With the pretty flexible single skin (one layer of fiberglass) they are flexible enough to eliminate the problem of air pressure changes in the sealed ends of the boat with temperature changes. (just have to remember that they will bow when that happens ).

Bill H.