Lost Hatch Covers

So, you are out on beautiful multi-day paddle, boat loaded with gear, just enjoying the good life.  After a wonderful night of camping you begin the loading process only to realize that you have either lost your hatch cover or the water/ocean has reached up and stolen it, leaving your precious boat with a big  open exposed hole.  What do you do now, how will you recover, what is your plan?

I had thought of this occurrence many times and kept meaning to add a spare hatch cover to my gear list.  Unfortunately, procrastination and what not got the best of me and I never got that spare.  Three days ago as I was  loading my boat in a fairly benign surf zone, the ocean reached up and grabbed my rear hatch cover and ripped it off it's tether.  The hatch disappeared into the green and blue spray, never to be seen again.  Arghh, oh no, what now!

For me, I had at least thought of this moment happening and was mentally prepared for dealing with it.  Even though I did not have a spare hatch cover, it was a simple task of getting the XL size freezer zip bag and placing it over the rear hatch and then using cord to secure it in place.  This patch was good enough to keep the casual spray and low waves from inundating  my boat with water, but certainly not anywhere near enough to deal with a roll.  Care and caution was the order of the day.

So, what can you do?  Make sure you have some plastic, either those XL freezer bags or the heavy duty green trash bags in your kit.  Either one of these can be  cut to the right size and then with something like 1.5mm - 2mm cord you can fashion a very tight emergency seal.  I have read somewhere that there are soft emergency covers and these would be ideal to add to your kit.  The ultimate is to acquire a spare cover, duct tape it into your boat and just have it ready for that moment when you really need it.

The lesson from this, you need to be prepared and ready for the incident that you think might never occur.  A lost hatch cover that can't be properly cared for is a real show stopper in a kayak on a long or even short distance trek.