Clear deck hatches for high latitudes?

[sparrowhawk1]

Originally Posted by dfelsent

Skip the hatches and the teak. Love the instruments. Giving me Datamarine flashbacks. Good ones.

Heheh. It gives me flashbacks to the toys I had as a kid with all the stickers that looked like gauges now my toys are just bigger and real.

[GILow]

Update.

Ordered the acrylic today. Found a very lightly tinted option that ticked all the right boxes based on the advice here.

Great price too. All the acrylic I needed for three large hatches, plus two large rear windows on the deckhouse, all for less than half the cost of a single new deck hatch.

Now all I have to do is build the hatches, sail the boat to Tasmania and wait for winter.

Easy.

[Jim Cate]

sail the boat to Tasmania and wait for winter.

Unfortunately, in Tassie the "wait for winter" is a short one. They could definitely use a longer summer down there, Matt!

Jim

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Unfortunately, in Tassie the "wait for winter" is a short one. They could definitely use a longer summer down there, Matt!

Jim

I’m counting on my Scottish and Norwegian ancestry to see me through the cold bits.

But I admit I got a little worried when a very hardy crushing couple told me they couldn’t take any more and got out in April.

[Andrez]

Hi I live at 52 south and have tinted hatches . never realy found a problem. Sure daylight hours are shorter in the winter so you are using electric lighting more but much longer in the summer. Summer light is very strong.
Personaly I would not change my tinted hatches but every body has different preferences

[Hasbeen]

6 years of my cruising was within 15 degrees of the equator. I had a 700 X 700mm clear hatch just forward of the mast.


It didn't matter what colour it was, as at anchor, [most of the time] it was always open with a windy man guiding any breeze in, unless it was raining.


At sea the dingy was upside down over it, so again colour did not matter much.

[Paul Howard]

Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Tasmania??
I have been in all of them, and living in Toronto at 43degrees, 35min, north, I am familiar with the amount of light one gets.
Winter cold and condensation is a problem. We lined the hull sides at our sleeping bunks with a foam backed bubble type of insulation sheet to make sleeping warmer and prevent condensation dampness on the bedding. I also used double sided tape on the inside to cover hatches with plastic sheeting during the winter to prevent condensation. We had an ESPAR heater - wonderful, especially ducting an outlet to just beside the head seat.
Clear windows/hatches are recommended, as you will be spending lots of time down below and any sunlight during the gloomier months is a blessing.

[Cheechako]

Some people know how to polish acrylic back to "as new" surface. Not sure if there is someone near to you or not. But Aircraft windows are redone that way.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Some people know how to polish acrylic back to "as new" surface. Not sure if there is someone near to you or not. But Aircraft windows are redone that way.

Sadly my hatches are way past that. Crazed right through and the frames are UV destroyed. But they are close to 40 years old so I can’t complain.

[Mike Banks]

If you are going to live aboard in winter--stick some bubble-wrap under your hatches, maybe two layers, and tape a bit of clear acrylic such as a clear file folder over them.

You will lose just a little light--but will keep a lot more heat inside.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by Mike Banks

If you are going to live aboard in winter--stick some bubble-wrap under your hatches, maybe two layers, and tape a bit of clear acrylic such as a clear file folder over them.

You will lose just a little light--but will keep a lot more heat inside.

Bubblewrap is a good idea, but I think we have already determined that GIlow would be incapable of resisting the urge to pop them.

My own favorite hatch insulation is twin wall polycarbonate sheeting.