(1) High on our list was a good looking integral hard dodger. We considered this a safety priority as it would reduce fatigue on passage and allow better watch keeping. It also proved to be one of the toughest elements to find and ultimately drove our final design choice. We were not interested in the more popular pilot house/deck saloon concepts as we believe it essential to maintain some contact/exposure with the weather, so we can sniff out early signs of a weather change.

The hard dodger has proven to be one of Hawk's best and most distinctive features. We continue to be surprised the concept is not built into more cruising designs.

We used 10mm tempered glass in the dodger, primarily because that's what Oyster uses on their big deck saloon windows and they have never had one break. It has proven flawless and in Australia we replaced the Lexan fixed side windows with the same glass. The Lexan scratched easily and expanded/contracted so much with temperature changes that it would break the caulking seal and start leaking.

Here's their website with photos of the dodger. Looks nice.

http://www.bethandevans.com/hawk.htm