Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK
Lids4Lend Programme - Making hatch refurbishment an easy option
We understand that whilst a good idea, many people find the prospect of removing a hatch, plugging the hole and getting the lid to and from us a mountain to climb, even out of season. During the season, concerns about security, safety and of course staying watertight are enough to put anyone off.
So, we used the C19 downtime as an opportunity to come up with a range of options to make hatch refurbishment an easy, rather than mountainous prospect. All of the options include the provision of a custom shipping box sized to your hatch and made using durable double layer cardboard in a 'flat box' style. Also, we've put together a low cost shipping package with UPS to make sending and receiving as pain free and cost effective as possible using their network of Depots and Access Points where you collect and deposit your packages. We manage the shipments and print all the required labels (including return). You drop off and collect at your convenience at whichever location suits you best. We've tried to keep cost to a minimum, so shipping costs start at just £12.50 each way and includes the box. Loan fees range from £10 to £20. So for a Lewmar Ocean 60, you're currently looking at £65 (+VAT) for the loan of an actual Ocean 60 lid and all the shipping. No deposit and often we can fit more than one hatch in a box making refurbishment of multiple hatches even better value.
Pricing
We're pricing this low as an enabling service to customers. Shipping is for four UK deliveries (two to you, two to us) and includes the custom box so represents excellent value and uses UPS, a quality courier.
All figures are in UK Sterling and subject to 20% VAT
Option 1 - Bronze - Current+ package
This is our current package plus a few additions. You remove the hatch under our guidance and then ship to us direct using a custom box we send you dropped off at your local UPS access point. You cover the hatch 'hole'. When the hatch is ready, we send it to your nearest UPS pickup point and then you send the empty box back to us for reuse. This option is the cheapest, but is perhaps best suited to the off-season.
Option 2 - Silver - Lids4Lend Temporary (Lifeboat) Lid package
Let's talk about the service first;
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we send you a temporary lid in the custom cardboard box
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we 'lend' you a lid which provides a secure, safe and watertight top to your hatch frame, designed so that you can continue to sail during the refurbishment
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you send us your lid in the same box, the return labels will already be in the box so you just place the self-adhesive label sleeve on the outside of the box and drop it off
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we refurbish the hatch lid and send it back to you in the same box
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you replace your hatch and use the box again to send the temporary lid back to us
What are the lids?
We machine the lids from old lifeboat windows in 10mm CLEAR Makrolon AR which is an immensely strong polycarbonate. All the fittings are stainless steel. We use M8 cup head bolts on top, which have a clean domed head which can't be undone from the outside, so are secure. These screw into threaded sleeves which sit between the top and the corner mounting plates. The mounting plates are secured from beneath using M8 pan head machine screws with a cross head. No exposed threads to tear your head from below. The lid itself sits on a 12 x 20mm single sided neoprene closing seal, part recessed into the lid to hold it steady and provide a watertight seal.
What hatches can you support?
We're making lids to fit a wide range of Lewmar, Goiot and Gebo hatches but on receipt of a few basic measurements can make others to fit your specific needs.
What are these custom boxes?
Initially we started buying preformed double layer cardboard boxes, but invariably these were the wrong size and meant we had to add too much padding.
So we took the decision to buy a pallet load of strong double layer cardboard and make a tool to crease the side lines. Then we bought an industrial strength cardboard stapler, created a spreadsheet with all the dimensions required for the various hatch sizes and bingo, we're in the box making game. A better fit means less waste and less packing so a win win. We hope you agree.
Option 3 - Gold - Loan hatch lids
I guess there's really nothing better that temporarily replacing your hatch with the same thing and this is what this is. We've purchased a number of used hatches and continue to add to our stock. These will have old plastic but will otherwise be fully watertight. Functionally perfect if cosmetically tired. We don't want them to be too attractive or you might keep them!
Otherwise the principal is as for the Silver option. We use a proper good box to ship the lids back and forth with pre-cut spacers, so no need for yards of bubble wrap and metres of packing tape (my personal hate).
In time we'll construct an online list of the hatches we have, but for now it's best to just call to check. initially we'll be concentrating on Lewmar hatches but will widen the service when we have others to offer. Of course if you have any old hatches (particularly the tops) kicking around in your shed then we'd love to discuss purchase, at the lowest possible price (please).
