Another problem I want to avoid is dry storage that isn’t dry. The hatches on the casting deck on my SF 20 have gutters:
… but they’re too shallow to be effective. If I leave the plug in the fish box, it fills up with rainwater. The gutters around the hatches on my action craft are much better. They’re deeper and they have a drain to the motor well, or in the case of the anchor locker, to a through hull
So for the all the boxes I’m planning to build, I’ll have a gutter setup that keeps the interior as dry as possible. I made the first box last weekend. I used sign board as the base for my layup and to build molds for two box compartments. I ripped tapered strips of spruce from a 2x4 for the gutter molds.
The gutters screwed to the table from underneath:
The boxes:
The clay fillets:
Then sprayed with PVA:
Gelcoat sprayed on:
The layup complete:
And the part popped from the mold:
The deck and hatches will be a separate assembly. I still need to insulate one of the boxes and put a drain in the gutter. The part has some aligatoring where the PVA didn't have good coverage over the clay fillets, but other than that it turned out pretty well.
Dave