Upgrading

[Oz Hernandez]

I recently purchased a 1982 Hunter 27 and would like to do the following work; replace the forward hatch; start replacing the plastic ports with something other than plastic and replace the stuffing box with a dripless unit to minimize the water in the bilge. I sure would appreciate any and all comments. Thank you

 

[Tom M.]

The high costs of upgrades

First of all You got yourself a good boat, with a lot of potential, there are many things, you can improve on, and all it takes is money any your time, the gray hatches and ports can be replaced, but they can also be repaired, I took 3/16" thk alum. plate 5" square, cut them diagonally rounded the edges, drilled a 5/16"hole 1" in on the longest edge on centerline, to repair broken clamp down pads, i also installed 1/2" thk smoked plexi, on hatch surface, usig 4 thru bolts and 16 sheetmetal screws from the inside and silicon. on the ports i've replaced the cracked clear windows and some of the hold down bolts and knobs. regarding the stuffing box, try first to replace the stuffing, cut the ends of the stuffing on a diagonal line not perpendicular and rotate each stuffing ring slit, 45 to 90 degrees from the previous slit. good luck.

 

[Joe]

You Have a Great boat

I have an H-27, 1980 and I love it. You can order replacement port lights from boat US. I did and they were reasonable and a good investment. As far as the hatches are concerned, ther can also be repaired. To repair the ears, I removed the hatches and cut a templete base with new ears from 1/ 2"plexi which I bedded. Then I cut away the broken ears before rebedding the hatch.Broken latches were repaired using el's made from small guage stainless which I through bolted to the hatch covers. The latches were attached to the el's using a properly sized screw and lock nut. This works very well and has saved me a lot of money since replacements are several hundred dollars each. I recently put a new Interprotect bottom on and sprayed the boat with dark green Imron paint. I also painted the decks white with Inter Thane 2 part e-poxy paint. The boat looks fabulous. The bottom line is that none of this would be worth it if I didn't first have a sound boat. The Creribini designed Hunters were terrific boats and will remain classics. Good luck.

 

[Rusty Liscoe]

Replacements

I have a 80' 27 and have made several upgrades with great success. JSI (Johnson sail) in St Petersburg, Fl has all the parts for your ports or the whole assembly. I re-powered with a Perkins 20 installed myself with no problems and have plenty of power for the bad conditions.Rustys/v Apocalypso

 

[Oz Hernandez]

Response to Rusty Liscoe

Rusty: Thanks for the info, I'll contact them as I would like to replace the ports with something sturdier. What about the hatches-did you have to replace any. Interesting, I keep my boat in Pensacola at Pitts. What kind of waste disposal system do you have. I have spent hours looking at mine and I still can't figure it out. I have a holding tank which can be emptied through a deck plat and-maybe-emptied directly out.