Day Hatch on WS Tsunami’s?

The day hatch on the Wilderness Systems Tsunami’s shares a common space with the rear compartment/hatch. We’ve been looking to find the likes of a plastic Rubbermaid plastic bowl that will rest on the rim of the hatch opening and still allow the cover to fit on normally. Thinking this would make the day hatch more functional. Haven’t found the right thing to use just yet. Any suggestions?



Thanks in advance



Leaf-Peeper

or…
get the pattern and make a bulkhead. we ‘should’ have a kit soon.



steve

hmmm
A bulkhead kit for it huh? While you guys are at it, you should maybe start cutting the rest of the bulkheads so they actually fit! I’ve already seen dozens of your kayaks this year with bulkheads popping right out or with large gaps between the foam and the hull…sections of the bulkhead with ZERO sealant…ya might wanna fix that before you start adding “Kits”.

And while your at it…
How about doing something about those ill fitting hatch covers? Take a hard look at Kajak Sport hatch covers and learn something.

Bulkhead pattern
As a contra to the above. Steve - thanks for sending me the pattern for a bulkhead for my Tsunami. My boat has been fine - no leaks, bulkheads are fine as well.



I appreciate your preesence on this forum and willingness to respond.

Yup
Those hatches…a pretty poor imitation of the real thing! Some of them are pretty water tight but alot of them are nearly worthless! I’ve seen plenty you can pop off with your little finger.

All the kayaks i’ve used in the past with either Valley or Kajaksport hatches worked fine. The Necky ones seem okay too.

I believe Confluence (Wilderness Systems among others) know that their hatches suck…they just have not solved the problem.

The seidign of the Tsunami’s are okay for a recreational day touring kayak…but the outfitting sucks. There only REAL sea kayak is the Tempest line…too bad they don’t have better hatches. Last Tempest I looked at, the front bulkhead was not sealed and it popped out. Too bad really…nice design work went into it and it has plenty of potential.

pdh (psuedo day hatch)
kinda cute,a hatch that opens to the entire compartment. Maybe they should put another one on the other side?



ok,ok,enough teasing. Check around there’s a 4" or 5" Beckson hatch that has an orange nylon bag that fits into the opening. Maybe there’s a similar thing for that size of hatch. Actually a tupperware container wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Just bought a 4" Beckson…
With a bag today to use as a day hatch on the Tern. I have a 5" on the Tern 14, don’t remember the name without looking.

To use the bag the hatch needs to have a little lip on the inside…

It may be possible to replace the stock hatch with one of these…???

WS
Wilderness Systems boats in general seem to be good hull designs overall with downright shitty quick-out-the-door-money-grab outfitting and components. You people come up with a hull, and slap the rest on and throw it into production without due R&D. Sort of a General Motors of kayak industry.

In a boat as small as the Tsunami i don’t think separate bulkhead for day hatch would be that good of an idea because it would eat up a lot of space you’d want for camping gear.

To the WS person, please pass this onto your boss :

Get your heads out of your asses and test what you build and actually fix what’s wrong with it instead of ignoring obvious flaws to make a quick buck.

Awww…come on now…
General Motors isn’t all THAT bad… :wink:

sounds like budget fighting QC
the person setting the budgets for a projected p&l probably isn’t anywhere near customer/dealer service.

Bad hatch idea
Ok, I’ll say it. I think that selling a boat with a “day hatch” sharing a common compartment with the main rear hatch is a not very responsible.



I don’t think it is a good idea to compromise your floatation by opening your main rear compartment on the water. I expect the entry-level paddler that the boat name Tsu seems to be aimed at, would expect that a day hatch is designed for access on the water and may not be aware of the problems involved in filling up the rear of the boat. These people may also be the most likely to go over reaching around into the hatch behind, even on flat water (except maybe for me:-).



The Tsunami would be better off without the pseudo-day hatch.