in the pic that Les posted above It's a sort of post-9/11 cruising boat...when people say to me, "Man, your boat looks bulletproof", now I realize that they're not kidding

Seriously, though...

Well, some time ago, we took out the interior steering station since it was hydraulic, along with the outside helm, also hydraulic. They both were working poorly --leaking-- they were outdated helm pumps, and pretty expensive to replace with new ones, and I didn't like the mechanical complexity of the hydraulics anyway...so we removed them (and changed the outside wheel to a tiller). So, the boat is a bit of a hodgepodge. I.e., it still has the bubble, which was designed to be used with the interior helm, as a sort of mini-pilot house, but the interior helm is no longer there. No big loss --hardly ever used anyway. It provides light over the nav table and does let you look out when it's cold and raining, without going outside.

Anyway, I can see how a good hard dodger would really improve this boat for a high latitude cruise. Thinking about it further, probably the best thing to do would be to design and build it so that it's not permanently attached and could be unbolted and removed. So, when not needed, after said high latitude cruise, the hard dodger could be removed and stored away. (This hard dodger project is getting more and more complicated, the more I refine the plans )

I like this boat --but the next boat will be much simpler (and faster) Like a J30 or something...

With the interior wheel gone now, we've converted the helm pump "box" on the bulkhead to a storage box (below) for small items...until I get around to taking it off! There's always a need for storage space on a small cruising boat.