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Refurbishing the Doghouse Hatch

Summary
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The Nimbles have a pretty cool hatch just forward of the mast. Very traditional looking. Mine, however, was very UGLY looking and leaking pretty bad.

The hatch had 1/4" glass installed with clear silicone slopped all around the outside. Since I was going to paint it anyway, I decided to dig out all of the glass and silicone. Well wouldn't you know, the glass shattered as I was trying to get it out.

I wasn't too keen on putting real glass back in there, so I decided on some GE lexan that I found on ebay pretty cheap.

I couldn't just put plain ol' clear glass back in there, could I? Hey! and opportunity for more Seaweed!

Here's Lisa performing her magic artwork on the two lexan panels. We used that "faux" stained glass painting stuff from the craft store and layered it on the inside of the lexan so it wouldn't be out in the weather.

We had already planned on a canvas cover for the hatch, so it wouldn't be exposed to UV 24/7 anyway. We'll have to see how long it lasts - it didn't cost that much..... Here are the panels after the painting was done.

Here are the panels installed in the hatch.

I added some starboard around the bottom edge of the hatch to feed my "no fiberglass-on-fiberglass" obsessive disorder. I took some 1/2" starboard and routed out a channel that was the thickness of the fiberglass edge. Dressed it up a little with the router, slipped it over, and held it on with short screws from the inside. I used some of these on the lazarette lids in the cockpit, too. The other thing I did was replace the hinges with these take-apart ones (you just pull the spring-pin out a little). Now the hatch can open in EITHER direction!

Lessons Learned

My wife is an artist.