Deck Fittings. Lots of thinking time went into the deck:

• What sort of fittings for deck lines and bungees.


• Whether to have hatches, and what sort of hatch lids.


• What order to do the build in.

Constructing the deck and fitings was made more complicated by the warped plywood deck of the Point Bennett. It is a very simple and neat design, but the plywood is being forced into a shape it doesn't really want to be in, and the final shape is only determined when the deck is forced onto the hull. In theory it must be possible to prop the deck up while off the hull in the right shape - and this is what Duane suggests doing. However, I decided that I wanted flush fitting wooden hatches, and felt that the deck would have to be in *precisely* the right final shape when building them so they ended up flush - and that could only be done with the deck on the hull.

Why did I want flush wooden hatches?

• Despite Duane's own kayaks being painted and looking fantastic, and despite deciding I would paint mine when I started, by this point I was starting to like the look of the wood and had decided to varnish my kayak instead, and I decided a flush hatch would complement that best.


• The commercial hatches seemed very heavy, and I really wanted light weight: if the kayak was too heavy to be fun to carry down to the sea on my own it would not get used, which would defeat the whole purpose of the build.

So, I'd arrived at needing to attach the deck to the hull before making the hatches. The next consideration was attaching the deck to the hull. The deck was glassed underneath already, while off the hull, and while propped to vaguely the right shape. For neatness I reckoned I could do without a separate glass tape around the join - instead I could attach the deck to the hull next, and then cover the deck and do the deck to hull joint with a single piece of glasscloth. This sounded like a fine plan. But what about fittings for deck lines and bungees?

Screwed on fittings which look to be used on Duane's Point Bennetts look great on a painted hull, but wouldn't suit a varnished one I decided. After research and playing around with various recessed options I came across 'Maroske' fittings, which I decided were the answer.

These are described as best being constructed in situ, before the deck is attached. But I wanted to attach the deck before glassing the outside, and that would mean glassing over the fittings. Cutting the fibreglass off the holes later would be fine, but I could imagine the 'U's filling up with resin during the process, which would not be good! So I decided to construct the fittings on scraps of ply, off the boat. The picture shows a string of them under contruction, with others already done beside them.