Slide-Opening Porthole in Head [1986 E-26]

[Roger Janeway]

My E-26 has a portlight in the head that was originally designed to open, partially, with a sliding pane. Does anyone know if a replacement for this portlight can be found, or if not, what opening portlight works in its place? The portlight is currently fine & watertight, but the slider is corroded, and I think portholes in heads should be portholes, and open.

 

[Leslie Newman]

I spoke with Bomon at the Annapolis show this year. They can make just about any portlight. I'm going to send them templates of my fixed portlight openings once I'm hauled out for the season and get the portlights out. So I can get a quote for replacements. Going to have them fabricate some that slide open.

http://www.bomon.com/

 

[toddster]

Mine always leaked because the “parts” were worn and the glass cracked. If it is like mine, when you take it apart, you’ll see that it is exactly the same as the fixed port lites except two drain slots have been punched into the outer extrusion with a chisel or something, and the “movable” half of the glass is put into the other groove in the extrusion with a brush-style gasket. And a little finger grip glued onto the movable side. I thought it was a cockamamie arrangement and converted it to a fixed port. It’s only 18 inches from the forward hatch on my boat, so not really needed for ventilation. It’s trivial to convert them either way.

As I’ve mentioned before, I feel that restoring all the ports to original condition was a huge hassle for an inferior result, and wish that I had instead embarked on a campaign of replacing them all with conventionally dogged opening ports.

 

[Don Smith]

E26 head porthole

Roger, for years I kept repairing the sliding portlight in the head but was never able to get it watertight. Finally I replaced it with a Lewmar opening porthole and have been happy with the results. The only downside is that it makes all the original portlights look kind of shabby. I was unable to find a new portlight that exactly fit the original hole, so I had to slightly enlarge the original hole.


Captain Don
E26, Gitana

 

[Roger Janeway]

Thanks for all your ideas. I was irrationally focused on restoring the boat's original portlight, when I should have simply rethought the problem and improved upon the original design. I hope I remember to think this way for the next issue that arises.

 

[Alan Gomes]

Roger,

You most likely want a Lewmar Size 1. And yes, you may have to enlarge the hole slightly, which is easy enough to do.

 

[frick]

I sealed my

On the ol E29 my slider head window was leaking. I just sealed it shut about 17 years ago. No issues since then.

 

[markvone]

Roger,

You most likely want a Lewmar Size 1. And yes, you may have to enlarge the hole slightly, which is easy enough to do.

Here is Christian Williams blog entry on replacing a Bomar opening port with a Lewmar Size 1.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/entry.php?121-Portlights-and-Veneer

I replaced all four of my original Gioit opening ports with the Lewmar size 1 which barely fit the short cabinside of the E36RH.

Lewmar also makes a slightly smaller size 0 but you ideally want to expand the existing cutout in the cabinside and not have to fill anything or leave gaps that will leak.

Use a jig saw for the cutout expansion. I used a small laminate trimmer (router) and a template which yields a super clean cutout that's totally hidden by the installed port, but an incredible fiberglass dust mess.

I highly recommend the stainless steel version of the Lewmar size 1 for the same price as the aluminum:

https://www.fisheriessupply.com/lewmar-stainless-steel-portlights

Why go through all the trouble of fitting a new port only to have the aluminum corrode 20 or 30 years from now?

I used butyl tape to seal the very robust stainless Lewmars and the only trick was getting the correct #10 machine screw length to clamp the exact cabinside thickness on my boat. The Lewmar supplied screws were too long, for a thicker cabinside.

Mark