Day 209

The pilothouse hatches are next! It's important that the view enables the helmsman to see up the mast but also what the main sail is doing. Therefor, the hatch needs to be directly above ones head.
Also the frames should be on either side.Happily this all worked out for us as the opening is only 18 of the 22" between so there was some room to move there. Of course there were some wobbleys in the plate that we had to straighten out, which is what's going on in this photo, but all in all everything went well.	..keepin' it flat!
Along with the interior considerations came exterior ones. We will likely only employ 2 solar panels (flex ones so far ) but Gena wanted room for 4. This slightly limited the width of the hatches to almost square.-which is ok.You never know! Gena is shown welding them up.
By the end of the day, they were in and the welds smoothed down nice. During the week at work, if we had some spare minutes, the anchor roller carriers were buffed to a wonderful finish. It's pretty time consuming work with the rouge and wheel and fine sandpaper, but eventually the started looking really fine! We had lots of advice from passers by, about how to do it. Stainless can be frustrating if your technique isn't down. For the first time in a long while the advice was welcome.
	Gena trys her hand at it! Getting out the scratches and mars from used SS plate can be a bit more work than it looks hehe!


As soon as possible, this will be welded up and re-smoothed in preparation for mounting them on the bow!

Day 209		Pilothouse hatches