San Diego: hatched
San Diego: hatched
The new hatch was installed yesterday, leaving me with sore knees, sorer shoulders, and sunburned ears.
Despite being from the same manufacturer, Lewmar, and the same size, 60, it is a Mid-profile rather than Ocean model, with a narrower flange and, unexpectedly, requiring a slightly larger deck cut out. Not having material to make a template and not wanting to cut away too much, I made several kneeling passes with the power jig saw before I got it right. Boats often put their owners in postures of abject worship.
Then two beads of sealant, one on the hatch frame, one on the deck, followed by a prolonged series of squats and knee bends as I popped above and below deck to tighten nuts on seventeen bolts.
I still need to paint about a 1” wide band of deck around the base that this hatch does not cover but the old one did.
While Ocean hatches are stronger, they are also heavier, higher, and more expensive. The Mid looks better on GANNET and will do. I made the same transition on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA when a hinge on her forward Ocean hatch broke in the Indian Ocean and I could only buy Mids in Durban. Mids also have the advantage of not catching jib sheets as the Ocean does.
Morning mist burned off as I was biking along the busy Mission Beach boardwalk, which is actually concrete, to the supermarket this morning, and the day has become sunny and hot. I heard on a Los Angeles news radio station that Death Valley, where the highest temperature ever in the U.S. was officially recorded in 1913--134ºF/56.6ºC--is getting near that again with a recent 129º.
San Diego is only 78ºF in mid-afternoon, but GANNET’s new barometer/thermometer is showing 90º in the Great Cabin. The slight breeze is not making it’s way below, so I’m sun-screening my ears and putting on a hat and going on deck.
Friday, June 28, 2013