: Yes, that makes sense and is going to make things easier. I was
: concerned about the thickness of cloth being included in the
: gap. Thanks to you both.
: My plan (at least at this moment) is to do flush hatches with
: internal bungees per Ross Leidy and probably the nylon web loops
: for pulls. Have considered rare earth magnets which I've used in
: furniture for door catches. Also have considered external
: bungees which I think look pretty cool. Lots of decisions!

: Ian
Ian, I used 1/2" diameter X1/16" thick neodymium rare eath disk magnets in my latest boat and they hold quite well. Because they are so thin I used a lot of them, about every 3.5" o.c. One of the nice things is their thin profile means I did not have to fillet around them on the hatch lip. I wet out 4 oz glass, then 5.7 oz cf, then snapped the magnets in place. They imbedded themselves into the 2 layers enough to forgo a fillet of thickened epoxy. I then laid up 3 more layers of glass and one more cf. I was able to do all three hatch lips complete with magnet installation in about 6 hours. I used a total of 80 magnets for all three hatches, they add about 7.5 oz to the total weight of the boat, probably no more than the internal bungee system that I was using on previous boats. The other reason for using magnets this thin is I use 3/16" strips, and I wanted the magnets to lay flat in the recess I made for them in the hatch with 2 Forstner bits (1 with a starter tip to locate the hole, 1 with it ground off so I could go deeper without coming through the other side). The protective glass does not like to go around a raised maget, and I didn't like the look of it anyway.

Bryan