I've seen two ways of doing this.
The more common solution is to attach to the companionway slide a metal
tongue or staple which extends through the door which closes last or the top
drop board. This is secured with a padlock from the outside.
The other approach is to mount some form of latch or lockset to the door or
dropboard such that its strikeplate is in the sliding hatch. This has the
virtue of being operable from the inside.


"ray lunder" wrote in message
...
Hello, I am trying to reconstruct a sliding hatch entry in my
companionway. This had louvered, saloon style doors which swing closed
and the hatch then slides towards the stern to close off the
companionway.
My question is: What prevents it from sliding forwards again? I
thought it must have some kind of stick on the underside of the slider
that is string loaded and clicks into place when the hatch is fully
closed but it doesn't look like there's any room for that.
The boat is fiberglass but has extensive wood trim. The hatch, trim
and saloon doors are wood throughout.
Does anyone have a similar arrangement on their boat that they could
describe.
Thank you.