Keepin' it closed

In this excerpt from a post, Chuck and Susan aboard m/v Beach House solved the problem of cabinet contents escaping in a seaway.

It is amazing how a small item like door latches can make a big improvement. We learned long ago that the standard latches most builders put on a boat will not keep the contents in the lockers once the boat gets rolling or if you find yourself in some heavy seas. One particular cruise off the coast of South Carolina found the entire contents of most of the cabinets in our main salon on the cabin sole. These cabinets also had finger holes that needed a single finger inserted to open the locker. This begged for a broken finger in a seaway. That is when we discovered that a simple hook type latch takes minutes to install throughout the entire boat and kept all of the doors securely closed no matter what the motion of the boat is.