I find that the hole in the bow is a convienent spot for propping up the vacuum tube for easy access. These are my two Lewmar low profile hatches, one for the foredeck and the other (larger) one for the aft cabin:
I laminated the anchor well cutout in preparation for pressing it into duty as a hatch. This is the first time I've used "poor man's vacuum bagging". Wow - maybe I got lucky, but the results were spectacular. Great laminate quality and not a single bubble!
It would have worked even better if my plastic didn't have a bunch of folds and creases in it, but I was still quite impressed. As others have said I don't think it will work well on surfaces with compound curves, but otherwise it's a neat trick.
I spent a lot of time digging out the edges of the anchor well and foredeck hatch holes, so I could fill them with bog. The foredeck hatch hole edges have already been filled, here I'm working on the anchor well hole; digging these edges out always takes a lot longer than I think it should:
This is a stack of four anchor well hatch supports (I'm doing mine like Menno), made from the scraps from the anchor well blank, clamped together so I can shape them in one go:
These will be for the side supports; there's not much room for the top and bottom supports and I will wait to do those. I plan to get these supports glued on and laminated before I laminate the anchor well into place, so I can easily test-fit the hatch fit.
Finally, I have a laminated flange curing right now for the foredeck hatch and will hopefully get that on the boat tomorrow. I started some sanding of the fairing compound in the bow area but didn't get far due to limited time.
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