Our new plastic lazarette hatch covers are completed. I still need to prime, paint and install them, but they are close to ready to go. I saw some expensive, but nice looking latch hardware at West Marine the other day that will allow us to lock the hatches down as well. It won’t keep out a determined vandal, but it will keep them shut when we want them shut and deter petty theft (something we have yet to have a problem with ).
Best of all the seats are not wood and won’t require the maintenance that the teak ones did. When you see Silver Lining from the dock she looks so much different from so many other Seafarer 38s out there. We have stripped off just about all of the wood except the toe rail, anchor roller, a few handrails, and the cockpit seats. Now the seats are going. A few people have commented that the boat looks colder now. It does. It also is a lot more fun to maintain stainless steel than wood in my view. If I have my way, eventually there will be no wood to maintain on the exterior of the boat. The only big job between me and that goal is the toe rail. I will figure it out someday on a beach when I find a good source of plastic or aluminum for it. In the meantime it stays wood, but at least the seats will soon be devoid of maintenance requirements!
Elan, I couldn’t agree more about “no wood on the exterior of the boat.” I am slowly converting mine over using PlasTeak, which is a material that works much like wood and require no maintenance. I also plan to replace the toe rails using Plasteak.
I am curious about how you are replacing your wooden cockpit seats or lazarette hatch with “plastic” that has to be painted. What material are you using? Do you have any pictures?
I am using a product called “new wood”. It’s a mix of polyethylene and wood fiber. I was able to get it at a local lumber yard for $40 a sheet. I wanted to just use a white plastic like starboard, but I wasn’t able to get sheets in town and each sheet was $350 plus freight. I would prefer a product that didn’t need to be painted, but I think this stuff will work. They claim it can be painted pretty easily.
thanks for share!