I just finished laying up a fiberglass hatch frame tonight (the first of 4) that will go into the CS17 Southbound to replace the old hatches and shore up the seat tops. An advantage of living at a boat shop is that there are lots of scraps of material. This frame is made of recycled fiberglass which would have otherwise ended up in the garbage. Big boats make big scraps fortunately.
There are some hairline cracks and some delamination in the seat panels that I wanted to seal up and the old hatches were needing some love. My stomping around on the seat tops during the last few outings on the boat didn't do them any good either. I decided to just make some "stock" CS hatches off of Graham's trusty hatch frame mold that will be more watertight and strengthen the seats as well. I want to try resin infusing one of these but I really needed to get a move on since you can't sit in the boat without the hatches in. This one I just layed up and vacuum bagged conventionally. There have been some really nice sailing days lately that I have had to pass up. Plus if I really get it in gear, I may be able to meet up with Steve on Spartina on Sunday who has planned a multi day trip in the area this weekend.
