Message 30 of 31
Posted by member colin hewitson on Tuesday 20 August 2024

Ahoy Guys,
Our Hardy MS 18 came so equipped/fitted with a smoked acrylic sheet covering screwed down onto the raised portion of the Pilot house roof, this was done by a previous owner to replace the canvas type covering, the turn buckle fittings for which (some) still remain fitted to the roof, something else I will have to look into doing some time, these are pop riveted on, so may have to drill out and make good the fibreglass finish with white gel coat as I have done elsewhere, with time and care taken, the 'mend' can be invisible once finished.

I was rather pleased to see an acrylic sheet had been fitted as the canvas ones seem to leave a lot to be desired and others on boats we viewed were in various stages of (dis) repair. The sheet from memory is about 8 - 10mm thickness but I will measure it the next time we visit the boat.

Probably the wettest year in history, our little MS has been amazingly dry, the cover which extends from the pilot house roof is very simple one piece affair with no windows but is extremely well made/fitted to the boat when she resided on Windermere in the lakes by a local firm. At first we thought no windows would be an issue, however, due to the large window area in the Pilot house, this has proven not to be the case at all and the smaller cover has a smaller windage area to present to the many storms we seem to get in the North while allowing good movement inside the cockpit area when fitted!

The sound of an opening car type roof hatch sounds like a good idea but I doubt we will look to fit one, the existing acrylic sheet serving the purpose well with no issues so far!

Col (& Angie) MS18 'Spirit of Lindisfarne'

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 28 of 31
Posted by member Kenny Clark on Monday 19 August 2024

Hi, some additional info information re previous post.

Screwed straight into surround. Pilot hole then used 16no. 1"x No10 s/s machine screws c/sunk with cups.
Double sided tape was very strong.
After fixing tape to acrylic panel need to have 5mm spacers between surround and panel to get in position before contact. Can't remember brand of tape but it was 25m wide, heavy duty stuff, with some sort of fine mesh.

Was looking to seal junction of surround / acrylic with silicone, don't think this is required as no leaks as yet.

Regards,
Kenny

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 26 of 31
Posted by member Capricorn on Friday 16 August 2024

Well done Mike, I have an interest in the wheelhouse hatch cover too. Mine is covered in large mould spots that are impossible to remove. I was also put off by the Seaglaze option and could not justify the outlay. I look forward to next months magazine. Regards, Ray.

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 24 of 31
Posted by member mike Szraga on Tuesday 13 August 2024

I've just fitted a fixed smoked glass Perspex sunroof to the hatch on my Family Pilot 20 without the use of any silicone or adhesives. I have sent the full details of supply and fitting on to Marie HOC editor for inclusion in our next magazine. Hopefully she will deem it suitable for publication. The total costs were less than £60.

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 22 of 31
Posted by member DavidP on Sunday 11 August 2024

I've just acquired a Pilot SE and the wheelhouse hatch needs replacing. The previous owner Sikaflexed a piece of perspex in and this has now started to leak. I was wondering if HOC got anywhere with the Seaglaze project? I've looked on the Seaglaze website but can't find any reference to Hardy 20. I was particularly interested if a price was ever established?

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 20 of 31
Posted by member Hardy Editor on Monday 16 March 2015

Ahoy everyone, George Linder of Seaglaze Marine Windows (post 17 above) has asked if I would mind coordinating the numbers of HOC members interested in the Family Pilot Sunroof Hatch Scheme. I am happy to do this as our HOC Secretary is quite busy herself at the moment. So if you might be interested in the development and supply of one of these hatches yourself, please contact me at editor@hardy-owner.org.uk. We need to supply George with a rough idea of how many individuals might actually be interested in order to work out costs. This will hopefully be of benefit to everyone in the future as well, and keep costs to the minimum for each purchaser. At this stage it is purely a show of hands in order to ascertain a unit price. Many thanks to you all, Marie HOC Editor

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 18 of 31
Posted by member Gerald Lewis on Friday 13 March 2015

Hi Marie, and thank you for the update. If you are looking for a show of hands in respect of prospect customers for roof hatches and sliding cockpit windows, please count me in for both. Being a south-coast owner, I expect that Liberty is located too far away from Seaglaze to be used as their guinea-pig boat (although I am happy to offer her if they are interested) - but if I can be of any assistance by checking measurements / trial fitting of templates etc, do let me know. If you or George Linder need to get in touch with me, I can be contacted via the e.mail address and telephone number held by the Membership Secretary. Kind regards, Gerald.

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 16 of 31
Posted by member Marie O'Connell Hardy Editor on Tuesday 3 February 2015

Pilot 20 Wheelhouse Sun Roof continued – Seaglaze Ahoy everyone. Things are as usual taking a bit longer to organise than we would like, but I can tell you that Seaglaze can offer their new version of the sunroof as ‘supply only’ with an additional sheet of guidelines for the installer to follow. This will mean that once Seaglaze are in a position to get down to the nitty gritty of producing one of these new version hatches, (the finer points being discussed as we speak) HOC members should be able to obtain one of these sunroof fittings in the future without any problems. The installation of the fittings will be up to each individual to organise for themselves, either by approaching a boat yard near to them, or contacting Simon of JStar (who is one of our own HOC Technical Advisors and a boat builder) or indeed installing the hatch themselves. I will keep everyone posted as to what is happening next as regards developments of the hatch – so far so good and it is looking encouraging. My thanks to Seaglaze. Thanks for your patience. All the best, Marie HOC Editor

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 14 of 31
Posted by member simon papendick on Monday 26 January 2015

Hi Gerald While I was at Hardy's the pilot 20 wheelhouse roof was the same throughout its production run and so has far as I know it never changed. Regards Simon Papendick

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 12 of 31
Posted by member Gerald Lewis on Sunday 25 January 2015

Hi Marie, and thank you for your efforts in contacting Seaglaze. If they are able to design and cost a hatch / sun-roof that would fit the standard opening on a Pilot, I would definitely be interested although, like Neil, my ideal preference would be for a 'supply only' version that I could fit myself. It would be helpful to know if the size of the aperture moulded into the wheelhouse roof was changed at any time during the long production run - perhaps Simon P or someone at the yard might be able to help with this ? I know that the dimensions of the sunhatch aperture on both Mike Lofthouse's 'Arion' and my own 'Liberty' are identical despite there being about 7 years difference in the age of the two craft - so, hopefully, the majority of Pilots out there will have a standard roof. Lastly, if Seaglaze are interested in identifying commercial products that would be of general interest to Owners Associations, might I suggest that they explore the possibility of a producing an opening starboard wheelhouse side window for Hardy Pilots that would replace the fixed panel that was the standard fitment on the older models. I think that a sliding window was introduced sometime during the mid 1990s (Simon K will probably know this) - but most of the owners that I have spoken to in and around Christchurch have Pilots with fixed windows that prevent communication between the helm and the foredeck when departing or picking up a mooring. Replacing this window is the next thing on my 'to-do' list once I have found and fitted a sun-roof! I will await future developments with great interest. Kind regards, Gerald.

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 10 of 31
Posted by member Marie O'Connell Hardy Editor on Thursday 22 January 2015

Pilot 20 Wheel House Sun Roof continued… Replacement of canvas hatch cover to hard perspex sun roof design. Ahoy Gerald, Mike and Rich, When I visited the London Boat Show last week I had a chat with Caroline Muckleston of Seaglaze Marine Windows about a bespoke sun roof hatch replacement for a Family Pilot Wheelhouse roof. (Please see Message 8 of 9). Seaglaze have produced some fine window fittings for some of the new Hardy range, but I explained to Caroline that interest in this fitting would be mainly for the older craft, and also that cost would be a factor. I asked what she thought they might be able to do to help us. Seaglaze provide a Replacement Window Service for owners’ clubs and associations. This is a new service and the idea is to obtain as much information as possible about various types of craft’s requirements, producing templates either from original fittings or new bespoke versions and then keep it all on their data base for future use. In this way Seaglaze could look at different window configurations and then provide a standard set and price. The first step is information gathering – pictures of existing designs and measurements. If we could find boat yards in specific areas to cover the installation, Seaglaze themselves have offered to visit and discuss and do measurements. Simon Papendick of J-Star Boat Services may well be able to offer a mobile service as well – this is still in discussion. As Caroline mentioned in her email to me after the boat show: “Obviously the financial benefit from this project will come from finding multiple people who would like the same hatch arrangement so we build more than one. We will come back to you soon with the next step, but in the meantime, could you please send me some images of the hatch you mentioned that you have seen? Thank you, Caroline” Obviously this would be fine if we were all in the same area, but we are not, so we will have to compromise and get a couple of boats together in one area to enable Seaglaze to visit and see what the requirements are and then they can do their own measurements. If we can standardise this then it should be possible to produce something original specific to our needs and then keep it on file for future use. So for starters, if any members could send me any information you have – especially photographs - of existing versions of perspex/sunroof hatch replacements that you may have on your boats/Family Pilots already, I can forward this to Seaglaze and then we can see where that leads. It would be great to make this type of hatch available to more members, and also try and keep the costs down as much as is possible, but it will require some coordination. Please Email me via the Contacts page – Thanks Marie HOC Magazine Editor

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 8 of 31
Posted by member Arion on Tuesday 13 January 2015

Further to Gerald Lewis's comment number 5. He referred to the hatch on my Pilot, Arion. The attached photo clearly shows the curvature (custom made or stock? I don't know).

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 6 of 31
Posted by member Richard Hunt on Tuesday 23 December 2014

I'm just looking at exactly the same thing for the Sea Scouts pilot 20. Have emailed Hardy Marine to see if the stock part will fit. Now to start googling around! Rich

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 4 of 31
Posted by member Robert Sneddon on Friday 19 December 2014

Hi Gerald. On my Pilot the original hatch cover like yours was beyond repair. I decided to fit a fixed perspex cover over the hatch. I decided on a tinted sheet of perspex which was cut to size prior to delivery. Some sealer and stainless screws fixed it on. Not too thick as the hatch is not completely flat. I don't have a blind fitted but a small blind could be fitted quite easily and like Clive, a vent could also be incorporated. I didn't open the original cover very much so being fixed doesn't bother me. Kind regards, Robert.

Add your comment | ^Top

Message 2 of 31
Posted by member Simon Kidd on Wednesday 10 December 2014

Hi Gerald. Hopefully a Pilot owner will log on and be able to help from experience. I have considered upgrading my nav, though there's a lot of work involved in adding a suitbley sized, level plinth / upstand in order to mount a hatch. Certainly a similar mod is used on Contessa 26 yachts - and the builder - Jeremey Rogers offers an upstand moulding to help - see the following site for further info: http://www.co26-around-uk.co.uk/reports/Forward-Hatch.htm Alternatively, you could fit a Perspex Panel - and maybe even use the old canvas rook to cover the Panel when needed - i.e. if too hot / during winter. Have a look at the following site - they owner may even be a memeber, but I can trace the boat name on the members list at this time. http://www.shorebase.co.uk/boating/hardy/hardy.asp I hope these are helpful. best Wishes Simon.

Add your comment | ^Top