Etienne,
I looked at your slides and am most impressed with your work. This is my first and likely only kayak for personal use, so I'm struggling to figure out every step as aI go. I had a couple of questions. First can you tell me what material you are using as a gasket for your hatches and your source. I see how your hatch hold-down acts like a hinge on one side, but can't see how the other side would be engaged or tensioned to hold the hatch firmly in place against the gasket.

Also any particular type of rope better for marine use, and should diameter closely match the diameter of the hole or easier to pass if thinner?

For the Moroske holes, can the initial drilling be done after glassing the outside of the deck? Do you have any photos showing how you build up the glass around the plastic tube to crate the U shaped passage/ I mean do you just stuff fibers under the "U" or do you wrap the tube, or does it matter? Thanks so much for advice. Regards,
Jay

Hi Jay

I use P sectioned self adhesive draught excluder from the local hardware store. I always intend to substitute neoprene later, but I never bother, as the draught excluder works so well. I have some on my boats that is ten years old and still as good as new.

I used the interior hatch hold downs on the hunter, but I don't use the hatches on that boat much. For other boats I like the method pictured below. It is easy to open and close at sea and captures the hatch so that it can't get lost. I always end up coming back to this style.

Most people might prefer pre stretched sailing rope for deck lines, but I prefer a little stretch in my deck lines so that they can be snug, but still accessible for grabbing. 5mm or 6mm rope is plenty. 5mm is usually what comes with production boats.

I drill the Maroskes at one inch centres before I glass inside or outside. I drill oversized holes, about 11mm, tape the holes under the deck to hold it in and fill them with sawdust epoxy mix. Then I glass the inside of the deck. This is different to how most other people do it BTW. Then I drill the holes for the tube, put in the tube with its coaxial cable reinforcing to stop it from kinking, fill in around the tube with a blob of sawdust epoxy mix and cover with small oval of glass cloth to neaten it all up.

When it has fully hardened, I remove the tube, join the deck to the hull, sand it all up nicely, and glass the outside. I glass right over the Maroske holes without filling them with anything. I do all the fill coats and the varnishing before I drill the holes out.

You could drill e holes out after glassing, but you won't have a good seal at the edge of the hole. You should really drill oversize, fill, then drill the actual size hole and then glass if you want to get the glass overlap and a little room as well to soften the corners of the hole.