| One of the modifications that the previous owner had already made to Harried Potter was the installation of hatches through both seats towards the rear of the cockpit. These hatches make it so easy and convenient to store crucial items, that I cannot imagine having a P-19 without them. To the right is a photo of the hatch on the port side, with its lid open.
You can see that there is a fair bit of paraphenalia inside, including the autotiller arm. I also keep in there one of our two fire extinguishers (the other is by the stove in the cabin), an extension cord for when overnighting at a marina with power, our horn, a couple of flares, and some life jackets. I purposely avoid putting too many heavy objects in these hatches, as I want as much weight as possible toward the front and bottom of the boat, as a P-19 sails much better that way. |
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There are only two problems with these hatches. First, after a full season of sitting on them, and squishing down the weatherstripping around the bottom edge of the lids, they will start to leak if it rains hard or you hose down the cockpit. Consequently, every spring when I pull Harried Potter out of winter storage, I always replace the old weatherstripping with new, and the hatches stay snug and dry for another year.
The second problem is that merely putting items through the hatches and onto the quarter berths does not suffice. Any movement of the boat will cause those items to roll and slide around, even end up in the dungeon area. In an emergency, you don’t want to have to stick your arm down through the hatch and try to grope around with your hand until you can finally feel the fire extinguisher somewhere inside!
The solution is simple. I bought some large rubbermaid storage bins, removed the lids, and pushed them into the berths so that they’re directly under the hatches, as shown below on the left, looking underneath the port seat toward the stern.
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Those storage bins keep the items together, but the bins themselves can still slide forward if the P-19 pitches fore and aft. I therefore bought two more, slightly smaller storage bins to slide into the quarter berths in front of the larger bins. We use the smaller ones as “closets” for other light items, such as our clothes, towels, toiletries, camera, hats, etc. That stuff is thus easily accessible when sitting in the dinette area, and much easier to retrieve than if we stuck them down in the cabin’s cupboards.
Of course, with the storage bins lined up on both sides underneath the cockpit seats, you can’t use the berths as... berths! But with only the Admiral and myself, we have never needed sleeping accommodations for four people.
