I have a love|hate relationship with our overhead hatches. We only have two overhead hatches (main salon and v-berth) and the boat would be so dark and stuffy without them. But at the same time, the sweltering summer sun coming through them turns the interior into a solar oven (or so it feels). Oh, and though they don’t “leak,” they do “drip” randomly sometimes and we haven’t been able to track down a source.
Our boat came with some lame canvas that snapped to the interior of the hatch frames. They were an ugly brown color, moldy and gross. We’ve seen a lot of boat owners who use canvas covers on the outside of their hatches to keep the sun out. We were also going to do that until we saw Outland Hatch Covers on Carolyn Shearlock’s The Boat Galley website.
The Outland Hatch Cover website has very easy instructions on measuring for the covers. Once we got them they were so easy to install and really help to keep the inside cool during the summer. We replaced the Lexan lenses in the hatches a few years ago and we’ve already noticed some crazing. The Outland Hatch Covers should reduce that effect. They’re so thin and flat we can store them behind the settee cushions or under the quarter berth cushion. The twist lock fasteners make it simple to put them on and take them off. The website advises not to use them in heavy winds so we usually take them off during the winter months when we don’t mind any sun coming in and when it gets super windy (we’ve had 60 knot winds before). I can see why Carolyn Shearlock recommends them and we do to.
