The hatch boards on my Catalina 25 are my latest project to tackle. When I bought the boat, the companionway was (and currently is) covered by one piece of painted plywood. It looks terrible, it’s heavy, and it’s difficult to store while underway. It’s hatch board hell.

Hatch board hell

Hatch board hell

The teak boards were in the dock box, but they were in terrible shape. There were old rusty staples holding one together. Not only did they not look appealing, they were very ill-fitting. There’s no way they would keep water out of the boat.

My hatch board looks like Frankenstein!

My hatch board looks like Frankenstein!

You think that's watertight?

You think that’s watertight?

While scrolling through Facebook one day I saw a friend of mine post photos of a wood chair he built. Long story short, I contacted him and he agreed to help me with my hatch boards.

Trying to decide whether to get new wood and start fresh or refinish the old, he gave them a quick sanding The beautiful color from days long past began showing again. He put a little varnish on one edge and the brilliant coloring just popped out! That made the decision pretty easy.

No more Frankenstein

No more Frankenstein

Varnish brings out the beautiful colors!

Varnish brings out the beautiful colors!

Before doing any further work, we needed to get the boards fitting properly. A trip to the boat to measure everything was in order.

Now the tedious part…sanding, measuring, fitting, sanding, measuring, fitting, ad nauseum. 😀

Soon, I’ll have great looking (and fitting) hatch boards. I’ll be in hatch board Heaven. Then I’ll be forced to sand and varnish my other exterior teak. Lol.