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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey Mike. I knew you would not tolerate that hatch board! Were they trying to make it look ugly?!
So cool you are getting to do this. I know it’s great for you personally and your family.
Happy for you.
PS: It needs more cowbell…
Haha, thanks Kev!
I’ve got the cowbell on order. Amazon said it wouldn’t be delivered until the 12th of never though.
Those are going to be nice. I like the look of a well finished piece of wood. When I replaced all my windows (portlights for those snobs who use sailorspeak for things with perfectly good normal language terms) with new acrylic, I had enough acrylic left over to make new hatchboards to replace a rotting single piece plywood door. We like that we can let light in that way. It is dark enough to protect us from the Texas sun, but still lets us see out. We also have a sunbrella cover that is attached to the hatch that we can roll down for privacy. Not as pretty as yours, but a nice functional solution for us.
That’s awesome Stan. I kinda like the idea of having some light coming though the companionway when you want some. You have any photos of your Sunbrella cover?
Mike
Mike,
Since I don’t have an email for you, I’ve put pics up on my blogsite for you.
Awesome, thanks. I’ll check it out now.
Stan, I like that! Looks really good! I might have to do something similar.