portlight screens

[RichCarter]

I know that many of you have probably replaced your stock aluminum opening portlights. I’ve since replaced the larger pair of opening ports on the starboard side with Bowmar ports. The originals were in tough shape and couldn’t be repaired. The two ports in the head are non-opening. If anyone ever finds a replacement that will fit there, please let me know.

The four smaller forward opening ports were better quality and were repairable. If I find an otherwise available boat unit to replace these, I may do so at some point. This is unlikely, so I’ll continue to repair what I have until something happens to one of them. Several years ago, I replaced the glass and gasket material. This year I noticed that two of them had damaged screens. I pulled the damaged screens out on Sunday. They are held in place with a turnbuckle that runs down the middle of the screen. A squirt of PB blaster on the threads and a pair of vice-grips were all that was needed to remove them. I took them home and inspected them last weekend. The frames appear to be zinc-plated brass with an piece of screen that is brazed or soldered to the frames. I ran the frames on a bench-grinder to grind off the solder and removed the old screen material. I cleaned up the frames with a wire brush and glued in a replacement piece of aluminum screen material using J
B-Weld
. The repair was fairly simple. I think they will work fine for several more years.

Here in the northeast, flying insects can be a real nuisance. The most annoying type are mosquitoes and green-head-flies. Having good port-light screens is of little value if you can’t seal off the other hatches. I made teak framed screens for the opening deck hatches many years ago. This was a fairly simple project. All you need is a router and table-saw to cut the teak stock. I had snap-in screens made for the two companionway hatches. I also had a full zip-in set of screens that enclose the cockpit. This works pretty well in the sloop model and should work for the cutter as well. If you have a ketch, it would probably be very difficult to fit. I’m in the process of replacing all the canvass. This includes the mainsail cover, dodger, binimi, connecting windscreen, and repairs to the screen enclosure. The bill is expected to run about $4k.

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Rich Carter

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