hatch closures?
what kind are you using?
I used swivel levers on a few s&g boats and it’s drier than VCP hatches. One was a flat aft deck s&g like a CLCNorthbay/Arctic Hawk, a Coho, the Merganser. On the Merganser 16 I made I used four swivel “dogs” like whats on the Arctic Hawk kit with a quick release Fastlok buckle and webbing across the center of the hatch to do double duty as a tether to the hatch. It’s convenient but the webbing doesn’t hold it down as well as swivels all around. One of the nice things about the Merganser deck is the peak in the deck and angle of the deck side panels makes for good down force for the conventional webbing closure over the hatch. I paddled it for awhile with only one webbing strap (not recommened) and it was dry in light surf.
7yrs ago when I first came across the CLC demo boats (before the present raised rings made out of 1/4"x4mm ply that improved the seal on the gasket) most of the front hatchs wouldn’t keep out water in rough use as the curve of the hatch ribs and the curve of the deck rarely matched,or about the same as some marginal neoprene/plastic boat combos. Actually one of the demo boats (LT18) had a gap so big you could see an 1/8" gap. I sometimes wonder if the LT18 was discontinued partially because that demo model was never fixed of it’s leaky front hatch. The deck hatch rings did help a lot but it would have made a LOT more sense to re-engineer the whole hatch design to make it fool proof in function AND less expensive to make.
Those fastek buckles were really never designed for cyclic load bearing and it takes a LOT of hand/finger strength to close a 1" buckle TIGHT as the effectiveness of the hatch seal is primarily a function of how tight the straps are. If you look at the force required to close a fastek hatch buckle TIGHT and look at the applications where these buckles originated (backbacks,waistbelts) you’d find 2"-2 1/2" buckles and not 1" ones. On some flatter decks LT Chesapeakes I’ve seen big guys, 250lbs, grab the hatch straps during rescues and break the buckle apart. The buckle is already under constant tension holding the hatch on a shallow aft deck,LTversions, that when a big person grabs the strap the tension could easily be 100-200lbs. If you look at the cross section of the buckle parts taking all that force it’s less than 3/16" square. It never occured to me until I was using a Ch18 in kayak classes with 250lb paddlers and doing rescues with beginners. And I was replacing buckles.
I like the idea of being able to open/close a hatch and have it secure even if you only have one hand or your hands are frozen/weak. With the swivels all you need to do is place the hatch, press down with elbow/knee/hand then push the swivel 180 degrees which could be done with a thumb/hand/elbow/knee.
Right now I’m getting the hatches on my Chatham16 dialed in as it appears the adhesive/sealant between the polyethelene and plastic VCP hatch ring doesn’t seal well with multiple flexings. I scraped off the adhesive on the day hatch ring and replaced it with 1/16" neoprene (used in covering stitches on wetsuits) and it’s worked fine.
It’s hard to figure out what the constants are when one design can vary so much in performance,thinking of the conventional set-up on plastic kayaks where neoprene hatch covers with hard lids sometimes works ok and sometimes leaves a couple gallons of water during surf landings or rescue practice.
The swivel “dogs” have been the most consistant because there are clamps all around the edge of the hatch holding it solid against the gasket and recess. It’s a mechanical closure with no give whereas straps are prone to movement, neoprene hatch covers still allow water to pump through while the hull flexes, and the nice oval VCP/Kayaksport/Wilderness System hatches are subject to large forces squeezing water through the sides during rescues.
In person
If you contact the kit manufacturers, they’ll usuall give you the names of owners/builders in your area. In my experience, they’re usually happy to show off and talk about their boats.
If you’ve never worked with epoxy, I’d suggest getting the System Three trial kit
https://www.ndic.com/systemthree/trial_kits.asp
and a small piece of 1/8’ plywood to experiment with.
Hatches…
On my Tern 14s mostly used for day trips I didn’t need storage type hatches. I did install deck plates in the bulkheads before installation, as I knew I had to have some access. One I ended up putting day hatches (Beckson) on the decks. On the other I did a Pygmy hatch on the rear deck just to see if I could. I didn’t use the straps instead used an internal bungee hold down which keeps it reasonably dry…
I would say the more time you take finishing the lip and hatch edge the less water will get in…