Starboard Double Open Out vs. Single Panel Boat Doors
Andrew 00:08
Hinges, King Starboard frame, King Starboard door, right? And then there’s your double open out door where your hinging on either side and you got this gap in the middle, right?
Matt 00:20
Always hinging on the vertical, but yes
Andrew 00:21
Always hinging on the vertical, correct. So what are the applications where a double open out makes a lot more sense? Because we sell a lot more of just the single panel. So what are the instances?
Jared 00:33
I think it would be any time where you don’t have enough space to either swing that door thats on the short side, you wouldn’t necessarily want to hinge that on the short side, right. Or alternatively if you were going to pull that door down and you don’t have enough room for it to pull down and still gain access in the console.
Matt 00:50
Yeah, I think the most common application that that door is used is on the back of a console between the console and the leaning post, and the reason for it is you don’t want the door to hinge down, you don’t want it to hinge up because it’s in the way, you have to move out of the way in order to open it and you’re not going to hinge it on a side because the swing would be too long.
Andrew 1:13
It would hit your legs or it would hit the leaning post, right
Matt 1:14
Well, yeah. Aside from the frame and mounting issues, it would swing too far, but it is the most common application where you take a door that would be say twice as wide as it is tall. That’s really the answer to the question you’re asking. The situation where you wanna use the double open out door is if you want to minimize the door swing on a door thats twice as long as it is tall, or working its way there.
Jared 1:42
You think of like a guy that’s trying to do work under his console, right, and so if he has a door that gonna swing down, there’s no way to lay down on the deck and get up underneath the console, right, where if you have a double open out door, its going to give you a little bit more room there so you can actually get up in there and have access underneath the console.
Andrew 1:57
Right, because I mean as a general rule, when you can, it’s better to hinge on the long side. Period. Ya know, because otherwise you’re just putting so much weight farther away from the hinge mounting location. You start to get some sag. So, you know, a lot of times, I guess what you’re doing, you’re taking a single panel door that you know can’t hinge down or up, and you want to hinge on the short side is by cutting that door in half. You’re making the sides the long side, right? Now instead of maybe 24 inches wide, you get 2 12 inch wide panels both hinging on the verticals.
Jared 2:33
One of the things that I have also seen as well is somebody that is accessing the back of the transom on like a larger Bertram or whatever, they’ll put a double open out door there as well. Probably the same application they wanted to swing open when they can actually gain access from the front, lay on the deck if they need to. With a double open out doors, we put a baton in all cases in those or no?
Matt 2:56
All the build your own parts we do.
Jared 2:58
And there is only a single latch which means that baton controls that left hand door from opening and theres a latch on one. Are there cases where someone asks to delete that baton for a specific reason and have 2 latches?
Matt 3:09
Yeah, we’ve done that before, for sure.
Andrew 3:12
The challenge is your left with a gap if you eliminate that baton. So it is kind of a two hand operation, right. You’ve got to open the right hand door, and then with your left hand open the others. That is potentially one negative vs just your single panel you open itl toss something and you close. But like you’re saying, we could put 2 latches instead of one latch, eliminate the baton, and now each side is independently accessible, but you’re left with some gap and we can minimize that right, but it’s not going to be nothing. So it’s super not water resistant right if you’re washing or spraying down
Matt 3:47
As long as you’re not worried about that, it’s not a problem. And we’ve had quite a few customers who want it to operate that way where I pull the left latch, the left door opens or the right latch, the right door opens. I don’t want to have to open one to open the other.
Jared 4:00
Is it mostly just an ease of access thing? Want to be able to use one hand to throw something in there
Matt 4:05
Yeah usually, or maybe they just need to access one side. So in some cases, or I should say in all the cases, is our build your own door, the latch is always on the right door panel. Well, maybe the customer needs to access the left side more than they need to access the right side; they just want that reversed. That’s a possibility as well and we’ve done that a number of times.
Jared 4:22
But the one specifically ordered off of the website is gonna have the latch on the right-hand side and the baton with no latch on the left side
Matt 4:28
Yeah. The interesting one that we’ve run into a couple times, which this is probably a much smaller percentage of the percentage is a customer who wants a double open out door that is taller than it is wide. So you’re still hinging on the long side, but you only have one latch at the top on this very tall door where you’re getting so far away from the holding point the door can rattle. It can actually start to pull away from the frame and such. So, in those cases, we have to figure out an additional latching option. We’ve talked about magnets before. Foot latches were the most common things that we’ve seen on older style doors, but those can be, in some of the cases, a little cost prohibitive.
Andrew 5:18
Yeah, you could also do a bi-fold door where you hinge down the center and it still is now you open out and fold the panel back in and back on itself. Those are definitely more unique situations for sure.