Companionway hatch

mrangry

mrangry

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On my Beneteau Oceanis 440 the washboards and companionway hatch are made of plywood and need replacing. I have purchased 10mm smoked acrylic sheets to fabricate new ones but just giving some thought to finishing at the runners. Currently there are "U" section aluminium channels that they are both located and slide within. I think from memory the "U" channels are 17mm and with this in mind I am thinking of bonding some aluminium "U" channels onto the acrylic to slide within the fixed "U" channels. This is to stop rattle and also scoring of the acrylic with opening and closing.

I am also struggling to think of a modern looking locking mechanism to use.

Has anyone any experience of doing this or indeed have any ideas that I may not have considered?
 
I'd use plastic U-shaped channels.

There are loads of companionway locks available. Just a case of finding one you like the look of. I think it's fairly pointless to consider them as "security", because if people want to break in, they will.
 
pvb said:
I'd use plastic U-shaped channels.

There are loads of companionway locks available. Just a case of finding one you like the look of. I think it's fairly pointless to consider them as "security", because if people want to break in, they will.
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+1.

I think companionway security should be enough to discourage casual theft and keep insurers happy, but not enough that serious (=seriously expensive) damage will be done by a determined thief.
 
Stemar said:
+1.

I think companionway security should be enough to discourage casual theft and keep insurers happy, but not enough that serious (=seriously expensive) damage will be done by a determined thief.
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Yes totally agree. At first glance I thought it will be easy to make this lock, however now that I am actually looking at locks its not as simple as i first thought.
 
mrangry said:
Yes totally agree. At first glance I thought it will be easy to make this lock, however now that I am actually looking at locks its not as simple as i first thought.
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Have a look at Mobella locks. They do a neat one which can be installed on 10mm material using a spacer. A little metal "eye" fitting is bolted to the underside of the sliding top panel, and is secured in the lock by a pin. There are drawings and details here - Mobella Secure lock

It may be cheaper to buy from SVB - Bent Board Lock buy now | SVB
 
Suggest you fit an overlapping piece of wood onto the upper washboard to cover the join. Even if you have the cut at 45 degrees down you may well find that water comes i if you get wind and rain blowing directly from astern. Bit too late now, but it might have been better to cut the board 70/30 then you could leave the lower part in when sailing to effectively deepen the bridge deck while still allowing access below. Common mod (together with a slide bolt to lock it in) when coding a boat with a low threshold like yours.
 
As to locking the set up, when I had to fit new washboards I got a stainless steel bolt that could take a padlock. I fixed it to the washboard and then drilled a hole in the hatch at the appropriate place: closed bolt goes through the hatch to lock it along with a reasonable quality padlock. Cheap, easy to replace the padlock of it gets damaged and as secure as it can reasonably be. I’d post a photo but the boats in Greece and I’m not!
 
duncan99210 said:
As to locking the set up, when I had to fit new washboards I got a stainless steel bolt that could take a padlock. I fixed it to the washboard and then drilled a hole in the hatch at the appropriate place: closed bolt goes through the hatch to lock it along with a reasonable quality padlock. Cheap, easy to replace the padlock of it gets damaged and as secure as it can reasonably be. I’d post a photo but the boats in Greece and I’m not!
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Would the hole for the bolt not allow water ingress?
 
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