Portholes

[Atmo]

Why are portholes on newer cruising yachts opening to the inside?
I find that most inconvenient. Any splash of water will find it's way in somehow.

Mostly you have to tighten the locking assembly in so hard that most people will not be able to open them.
Further, after one or two seasons the seals will be hardened out and need to be replaced.
Further, the outside facing ones we used to have never leaked when we had a wave smashing on them.
Well, the get more pressure on the seals that way...
Biggest advantage though is that if it is raining they still can be kept open.


Guess there must be a funny reason why that has changed.


Atmo

[stormalong]

That hasn't changed. Been that way for as long as I can remember with very few exceptions.

Sailboats need port hole hatches opening inward to avoid jib sheets and other lines from snagging on them and to prevent sailors from tripping on them.

[Orion Jim]

I’ve never seen opening ports which open outwards, but I’m only pushing 70 so there’s still time….

[Atmo]

Thanks Stormalong,

was guessing something like that.
On our Privilege cat the Portholes on the upper chain were facing outward. At sea we had them mostly closed anyway, apart from long passages in light winds.
On a cruising Cat with sea fences chances are pretty small to catch a jibsheet with a porthole.
Using our Gennaker we made sure the kitchen Portholes are closed.
To make a point, our next cat will be a Privilege 42, wich has inbourd facing portholes.
Having seven or eight of these will make it quite costly to change them over.
But in my books the advantages are much bigger having them opening to the outside. Cheers,
Atmo

[Manateeman]

Difficult to open, nope. Seals only last a year, nope. Better in rain, nope.
I’m sorry but I’m beginning to think re inventing has its downsides.
Our ports open in. They are inset about 4 inches and we have exterior Lexan bolt on sea plates so the ice bears can’t grab us. Our windows are laminated bank glass. Unless you are going far north, I’d stick with any nice stainless port that opens in, not plastic, bronze or stainless. Even with the spigot not tilted in, it’s the wind that blows rain into the boat. That’s why we have a lot of nice big dorades. Happy trails. Mark

[Mike OReilly]

Our ports open in. I've never seen a boat with out-opening ports. Seems like a bad idea.

Our ports do not leak, are easy to use, and the seals are 40+ years old, and still going strong. What a bizarre notion that they have to be reefed so hard as to make them difficult to use .

But I'll give you the rain use thing, although there are solutions to this as well.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Atmo

Thanks Stormalong,



was guessing something like that.

On our Privilege cat the Portholes on the upper chain were facing outward. At sea we had them mostly closed anyway, apart from long passages in light winds.

On a cruising Cat with sea fences chances are pretty small to catch a jibsheet with a porthole.

Using our Gennaker we made sure the kitchen Portholes are closed.

To make a point, our next cat will be a Privilege 42, wich has inbourd facing portholes.

Having seven or eight of these will make it quite costly to change them over.

But in my books the advantages are much bigger having them opening to the outside. Cheers,

Atmo

Are you not describing deck hatches mounted on other than horizontal surfaces?

[Atmo]

Well, thanks for all the feedback.
Tried to attach a photo of our Privilege 42 Cat, but you can only attach a ÚRL'' which is a format I don't have.

The last weeks I did spend a bit of time on a friends cat, a 42 Manta, Us made.
It does have the stainless steel framed portholes opening to the inside.
Even with new seals they were big trouble to close against rain.

That was most of them. That's the reason I made that statement.
The Privilege 39 is a multichain construction and the upper chain leading to the deck is tillt about 20'' towards the horizontal. Maybe that's the reason they choose outward opening portholes there.