The companionway is the technical boat-person term for the little hatch you go through to take the stairs down into the boat.  As with everything else, I have no idea why it’s called that, only that it’s been labeled that for hundreds of years and no one wants to change it!

Either way… the top door slides back on strips of plastic.  Over the years those strips had been dried out and cracked by the sun and salt exposure.  The one on the left was just cracked and broken at every bolt hole but “intact” if you could loosely call it that.  The one on the right was literally in pieces that we had to keep rearranging into place because they would fall out.  Since we use this thing every time we get into and off of the boat, it was time to fix it.  Luckily the factory still carries those pieces but they’re made out of a much more stable and better material this time around.

Unfortunately it’s a gigantic pain in the ass to actually remove that sliding door on top. It’s possible, obviously, but there’s a lot of disassembly involved so almost everyone just ends up cutting the old sliders flush with the door at its most open position and installing the new ones in front of it. I’m tired of working on the boat right now, so that’s the option we chose also. 😉

It was pretty easy to remove the pieces and use our oscillating tool to cut the old and new sliders to length.  Jason drilled and countersunk the holes so the screws would be hidden and not interfere with the door while it’s moving.

In the grand scheme of all of the stuff we’ve done to the boat so far, this one is small potatoes…but it makes a huge difference!  I’m going to be slamming that hatch around for a while until I remember that it doesn’t need as much force and glides on the new sliders like butter! I’m really happy with how it turned out! Now I just need to rebuild and refinish the door itself!