AS EXCITING AS IT SOUNDS
One of the nice things about the Cherubini Hunter 36 is that engine access is excellent – you can get in from the front, from the side lazarette and the entire cockpit floor lifts up so you can get to it from above.
The problem when I got the boat was that the floor hatch was not secured down, instead just resting there. This meant that
– water seeped in down over the engine when it rained, pooling to form a big-ass lake under the engine sump (and I have enough water features already thank you very much) and
– in a knockdown or capsize the engine hatch would merrily fly off and disappear into the ocean
Both of these were not great scenarios.
I used the instructions from this thread here
Basically, I embedded barrel nuts in a ‘bed’ of epoxy on the frame of the hatch opening, after lining the edge with a rubber gasket.
From underneath:
Top view
All done
Then it was a matter of getting some 1/4″ screws to secure the lid down
Done!
Notice the soot/oil/fish blood stained non-skid. I really should get on repainting that.
That process seems easy but in reality the whole thing was a GIANT pain in the knackers, and took me almost 3 months. I had to do the first few one at a time to make sure they were placed correctly, and each barrel nut needed two lots of epoxy setting – one for the initial ‘fixing’ of the barrel nut using the bed of epoxy, and then one afterwards with the hatch removed to seal the top bit. HUGE PAIN.
