Has anyone ever cut a hole in the side of their hull to add a small port window? I have a forward facing navigation desk at the bottom of the companion way. I always loved boats like the Jeanneau Gin Fizz and the Dufour 35 that had a nice sized port light at desk level at the nav desk. I always fantasized about adding one some day to my boat.
Has anyone ever done this and added a port to some location on the side of their hull that did not have any originally? Assuming its an oval'ish shape with no sharp corners, any reason why this would be a bad idea? I'm thinking of something like ~18 x 8" port. My hull in that area of the nav desk is 3/8 to 1/2" thickness. I would think the biggest concern would be making sure the hull was flat enough to be able to get a good seal. Structurally if i were do attempt to do something like this, I would epoxy bond a 1/2" thickness G-10 flange around the cutout opening on the inside of the hull and through bolt the window frame through the epoxy flange to add some structure back into the hull.
Just throwing around the idea in my head right now. Its not something i'm going to attempt if its questionable structurally, but may consider a year or two down the road if there are no real reasons why it could not be done safely. Anyways would appreciate any thoughts on this...
Has anyone ever done this and added a port to some location on the side of their hull that did not have any originally? Assuming its an oval'ish shape with no sharp corners, any reason why this would be a bad idea? I'm thinking of something like ~18 x 8" port. My hull in that area of the nav desk is 3/8 to 1/2" thickness. I would think the biggest concern would be making sure the hull was flat enough to be able to get a good seal. Structurally if i were do attempt to do something like this, I would epoxy bond a 1/2" thickness G-10 flange around the cutout opening on the inside of the hull and through bolt the window frame through the epoxy flange to add some structure back into the hull.
Just throwing around the idea in my head right now. Its not something i'm going to attempt if its questionable structurally, but may consider a year or two down the road if there are no real reasons why it could not be done safely. Anyways would appreciate any thoughts on this...
