More hatch work

I started sanding this morning in the bow area, but then realized that I'd better get the anchor well hatch supports installed so I wouldn't drip stuff onto a faired surface. (Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse not to sand?) I scooped out the edge foam from the areas-to-be-exposed on the supports, filled them with bog, let them cure in the sun, then installed them:

From underneath:

They look a bit chunky from underneath - I think I made them a bit too long. Well no-one well ever see them unless they stick their head into the anchor well....

Later I did a test fit of the hatch-to-be:

Not too bad, but I think my supports stick out a bit too far, thus holding the hatch a bit too high. It will get worse when I put some glass on the upper portion of the supports too - I may sand them down a bit. The hatch doesn't look like it is sitting square in the hole either - will need to trim things up for appearance's sake.

I'm mildly concerned about the weight-bearing capability of these supports. I don't know how to do the math, but I doubt there's any way they will hold a grown man stepping or jumping on the hatch. On the other hand, I don't feel like investing the effort to make them that strong. So I won't put no-skid on the anchor well hatch, and will just have to be careful. Nevertheless, I taped each support with two layers of A, just to be on the safe side. This took some time as I had to build up a fillet to transition from the support to the cabin roof - should have created the fillet from foam; that would have been easier (and lighter).

Here is my bunktop hatch flange:

Getting installed:

I haven't taped underneath yet. Looking at this picture, in retrospect I probably made the flange too wide, thus taking too much away from the open area. Oh well.

While waiting for the stuff above to cure, I decided to cut out the poptop hatch opening. I don't know that I'm at the right point in the process for this step, but I was getting pretty darn tired of contorting myself to get into the boat from that end. Now I have a nice big hole:

It is much much easier to get into the cabin now. I noticed also that heat escapes from the cabin more easily, a nice bonus.

I kept going and installed the hatch coamings:

The forward coaming required some work with the heat gun to get it to bend to the shape of the cabin roof. The side pieces were fine as-is. Unfortunately, I screwed up slightly when I cut out the hatch hole: I used the coaming-to-coaming dimension as my cut width, instead of adding the width of the coamings. So my hatch width is .75" times 2 equals 1.5" too narrow. I didn't realize it until later after the coamings were installed. Well it's not fatal but now I get to mentally adjust all of the other dimensions with respect to the poptop.

Before you ask where is the high-density inserts in the side coamings, well I made all three coamings from high-density. More weight true, but I still have some to spare might as well use it in a good spot.

I had a great holiday weekend, and felt like I made substantial progress on the boat (and found time to mow the lawn too). With the supports installed, I need to keep working on sanding in the bow area until I feel ready to tape in the anchor well. From there I should be moving fairly quickly to beam mount installation.