I am building an Expedition Rowboat and am wondering about the location of the 5" round access hatches in the cockpit. The instructions say to locate them 18" forward of the rear bulkhead. That is certainly not centered in the length of the cockpit and is rather far back, close to ones feet. I suspect this may be to enable glassing of the deck joints between the center and aft deck - this location makes it easy to reach the joint from the inside. But, it certainly isn't ideal from a usage standpoint - farther forward would be easier to access while sitting in the cockpit. Comments?
Hello Mark.
My understanding is the rationale for the 5" round access hatches in the cockpit is to allow access to the t-nut that fixes the oar rigger to the hull. Hence the prescribed location is adjacent to the peculiar wedge shaped block(x2) that is fixed to the hull to make a flat landing place for the oar rigger. I followed the build instructions and found it very convienent to manage the t-nuts.
You ponder, "to access [storage] while sitting in the cockpit". In my experience the sliding seat assembly will block access to the access hatch no matter where along the cockpit you decide to place it. I havent explicitly checked it but I suspect even attempting to unscrew the hatch cover will fail because there isent enough clearence. Apparently, access while seated in the cockpit was never a intended use case.
I hope this helps Mark,
Kind Regards,
Tony
Tony, thanks for the reply. Since my original posting I have learned that some others have put a second hatch farther forward, more readily accessible while rowing, for water, food, rain coats, etc. Your observation that there isn't a lot or room between the hatch and sliding seat assembly does limit the accessibility of that area.
My current thinking is to put in two access hatches, though still a work in progress.
Regards, Mark
