Tightening Down the Front Hatch

[Aldo]

One day this past summer, we were sailing across the Chesapeake on an ugly day but with a nice breeze, and had and inch or 2 of water on the deck for hours. Water was coming in the front hatch. (Ours doesn't have any mechanism to screw it down and compress the gasket that is on the underside of the hatch. The hatch does have the holders on the side3s to hold it up, and the slide bolt to lock it down, but in the down position, there is about 1/32 of an inch of space between the gasket and the flange that sticks up). What I did at the time was to take a bungie cord and bungie the bolt on the hatch to the Porta-Pottie. This worked at stopping the water that day, but this isn't the way I usually do things. My question is do any of you with pre 1986 C-22s have hold downs on your front hatch? Are they in the corners, or how are they positioned? I looked through my Catalina direct catalog, and it looks like the same Hatch dog assembly that is used for the Pop-Top can be used for the front hatch. I don't know that my wife will appreciate sleeping under these bolts hanging down. I'll probably have to velco them so that they don't hang down when we aren't sailing. Aldo

 

[Robert W. Bonney]

Front hatc

I was having some leaks in my front hatch for a while. My C22 is a little newer so I don't know if the hatch design is the same or not. I discovered that my lock down handles actually have two seperate lock down mechanisms on it. One leaves the hatch open about an 1/8 inch. I guess this is some sort of ventilation , not sure. The second catch on the handles will snug it down securely and form a tight seal. Like I said, I'm not sure we have the same setup, but thought it might be worth a try.

 

[Pete]

Hatch Dogs

My 1984 has the same dogs that are on the pop top. They actually don't stick down as I recall. I think the deck is thick enough that they are recessed.My memory may be faulty, but if I had banged my head into them I would probably remember. Pete