gwkc! you out there?

I'm thinking about hinging at least my aft hatch and wondered if you had any ideas

I'll head down to west marine and see what they have but I just wondered if you'd seen that done with the tarpons

What I was thinking about doing was some sort of soft hinge and stretchy something to hook on the opposite side, and keep the straps of course

The whole point being to make it easier to do everything in dicey conditions




thanks

Paul,

Use 2" solid webbing, as used on the Ocean Kayak hatches. I'd recommed doing as Ocean Kayak does, and put in a snap-lock buckle in the "hinge" portion.

I'll dig around for a photo or two.

Scott

If you can, zoom in on the front "hinge" in this picture:



Another look, at another hinge, on another kayak:

I got tired of the wimpy straps on my T160 so I beefed them up this weekend.
I got rid of the attachment buckles and used washers in place of them. I like it a lot better.
I went with 1 1/2'' polyprop webbing. It will be much easier to manage the larger buckles with gloves on.
You can see the pic where I took a small piece of webbing and a clip and secured it to the hatch. I attached a buckle to another piece of webbing, then ran that webbing through the clip before securing it to the kayak. This acts as my hinge an I will not lose the hatch.
Same basic design as what was there before but with much beefier straps.

Sorry I missed this thread blue.  I have zero experience with a 2 hatch T-160 but that rear hatch does look like quite a reach.  Totes idea looks pretty sweet. Wherever you make your webbing hinge, put it close to the cockpit, that way if it flops in the water its still kinda easy to reach...BTDT 

The only other thing I can think of would be to use a series of hooks and deck bungie to lace it on.  They can be very fast and furious if well though out, but not as secure as the buckles.