Mosquito screens for 556x556mm Lewmar hatch on Bavaria 38

[Florian68]

Hello,
Iam looking for a combination of flyscreen/shade for the above mentioned hatch. Bavaria only supplied a sun screen that could be rolled out underneath the hatch, but this was not „mosquito tight“.
There are several frames from other firms and from lewmar that would provide the dual use of blind and mosquito screen, but does anyone know which fits to the hatch?

[Yngmar]

You can buy the OceanAir stuff, which costs about as much as the whole hatch. Or if you don't need it to be quite so posh, you can do what we did:

Buy a roll of adhesive backed hook tape (e.g. Velcro - hook and loop but only need the hook side). Stick all around on the inside of the frame, which on ours was the perfect width to do so (Gebo hatches, but I suspect Bavaria used the same inner trim). Now buy a pack of household mosquito net for a few coins from the supermarket. Stick it onto the hook tape, which will hold it securely, starting in a corner and working your way around. Don't tension it too much, just enough to not flop around. Cut off the overhang - leave one corner a bit longer or sew on a little bit of webbing so you can pull on it to open the net and access the hatch handles.

Costs under €5 per hatch. The mosquito net gets UV damaged from the sun and needs replacing every 1-2 years, at an additional cost of €2 for the entire boat. Made a big difference to our sleep quality!

[Symphony]

What you are describing is the Lewmar Eclipse shade as fitted as standard to newer boats. Rather more expensive than Yngmar's suggestion at around £200. Pretty sure the size you want is for a Lewmar 60 hatch, stocked by all the main UK mail order chandlers.

[Florian68]

Thanks for your help, I will  start with  the  velcro and see if this is good enough for me......

[Rampage]

We’ve gone for a slightly different way of doing it.  Using acrylic canvas offcuts and insect screen material we’ve made up screens for all of the hatches.  All the screens are fixed in place using turnbuckles.  Deckhead hatches ( outward opening) are held in place inside, whilst the portlight screens are fixed outside.  Picture (not brilliant) shows the portlight screens in place: they stay there all season.  The netting generally lasts about 4 years before it needs replacing, which is a reasonably simple job.  Cost was pence as only real purchases were for the insect netting.
We also used a canvas frame with netting infill for the companionway hatch, using a couple of bits of batten to provide support.

[Jess21]

A simple, cheap and effective solution is to use a sewing machine and stitch the mosquito gaze, creating space for an elastic rope.
At each corner of the window or hatch you have to mount a fastener.
Mosquito gazes are mounted at the inside of the boat.
It's a type of fasteners which is probably already behind your curtains, and it is needed to hold the elastic.
These fasteners are often used in Scandinavian boats (see pictures).

[Goboatingnow]

What do people do for the main companionway hatch ?

[Yngmar]

What do people do for the main companionway hatch ?

Shut it. Plenty of ventilation coming from the netted hatches/portlight fore and aft

You can hang some netting over the companionway with lead bands to keep it in place or use those magnetic clips, but generally it's a faff, breaks a lot or slows you down when you need to get out fast, so we never bothered and just close it.

[Jess21]

There are standard products out there for the entry hatch. Price 70 .. 80 euro. Lead chord is used to keep the screen in place, but on it's own it's not a great success. We modified it with attaching a bag/strip 10cm with stones (to be placed on the hatch) and an extra strip of PVC to slide over the side handles and mount the gaze in place. The final result is a pretty good closed screen for musquitos. Provides a lot of fresh air... Would not want to go anchoring without that screen...

[Jess21]

Photos: