Jan-Feb 2016/Teaking the cockpit and fitting the flush hatch

  Teaking the cockpit and fitting the flush hatch

As we did the following works always blockwise during holidays I want to complete this blog by describing monthly.

After a few weeks rest we started to work again. Some days before we left  Lyme I got an email from Iain Oughtred with a practicable solution to spare the compressionpost cause we always wanted to get rid of it out of the center of the berth. Iain has a friend who did all the  calculations and Eva and me decided to change a view things therefore. Off course this way to build a boat isn't really the best nor very efficient but now (I did this post 11months later) we are glad for having done.

But let's start step by step. First off all I wanted to finish the teaking. Cockpit-sole, bridgedeck and cockpit-seats were the first part. Without all that pressure to get a boat ready for launch it was much more stressless to work.

I developed a nice way to stretch the cockpit by optic. Therefore I shaped the teakbattens for sole and bridgedeck with a taper from the companionway to the aft.

Next I did the seat-battens as well and glued all with Sikaflex.

When I first worked with Sikaflex teak-decking it was really messy work. But you live and you learn. The second time went much better. And doing straight lines is definitely much easier than curved ones ....


On the picture to the right you can see the holes in the cockpitsole behind the bridgedeck where later the cockpitdrains will be positioned...

After finishing the cockpit-teaking we started to mount the hatch on the foredeck. To avoid annoying problems with tangled sheets we chose a Lewmar flush hatch, which surface ends up completely flush with the deck.

Due to a mistake in the hurry of the last weeks in Lyme the cut out for the hatch was simply too little. Sounds on first sight not really problematic but resulted into a complete reconstruction of the hatchframe. I had to extend the opening and replace a wider frame beyond the already existing decking. Not really an easy job.... (Think first, measure twice....)

It was a real mess but finally the hatch  slid in perfectly and after adding thin additional teak-battens to egalize the decks curve it fits perfectly and completely even with the deck surface. To drain the hatch frame I installed hoses  which later will be connected to valves to let the water run off portside and starboard.