[other tom]

I "cheated" a little bit. I knew I wanted a livewell in the floor, long fishboxes/storage, and gutters around the hatches. I wanted the design to be similar to SeaVee, Whitewater, and Intrepid with the hatch lids. I agonized over how much work it would be to build a mold or fabricate the gutters and perfectly fitting lids from scratch, so I asked Norman at Whitewater and Ariel at SeaVee how to do it...after a few beverages it was decided to just buy a molded piece from Whitewater that is used in the 28'. If you look closely, about 2' in from each side of the liner is a seam, as well as a seam 3" fwd of the transom. This "insert" contains hatches for both long fishboxes, the bilge hatch, and the livewell hatch. The livewell "tub" is glassed to the bottom of this piece which measures about 4' wide by 7' long (fore & aft). The rest of the cockpit and stringer width was designed anbd built to accept this "drop-in" piece. The floor was built, and the edges faired, primed, and sprayed with awlgrip just as if it had been popped out of the whitewater mold, and then this "piece" is layed in and set with silicone and self tappers. Intrepid uses this method and it allows access to the inards of the boat if you ever need to do some serious surgery. The aft bracket of the leaning post is mounted through this piece as well. I chose the cap/floor color and Norman matched it in gelcoat. The result is an aesthetically - good floor with very functional hatch drains and a really good livewell/bilge access hatch system which can all be removed. The option is to build a totally flat deck (ply, divynicell, corecell, etc) and then sit there with a router, sawzall, and circular saw to fabricate the hatches (which I did on the foredeck).