Attach the Fore Hatch

With the decks glassed, I started attaching fittings to the decks beginning with the fore hatch. I glued and screwed on the deck half of the rope hinge and a hold down for webbing made of ash. I finished up with cosmetic fillets and epoxy coats.

I wanted to hold the hatches down with webbing but had heard that using side release buckles didn’t do a good job. My friend, Rod, is using over-center buckles for the fore hatches on his Mana 24 but I couldn’t source them very easily. I knew that I wanted something with the convenience of a side release buckle and the ability to tighten down like a cam buckle so I decided to combine them. I’ll try this for a while and see what I think.

I’ll add the rope hinges after painting the decks.