Ah, so the rectangle of plastic card that fits inside the cut-out in the bulwarks brings the back of the door flush with the inside of the bulwarks (the thickness of which will presumably depend on how much P38 I put on the inside to cover the mat. Is that about right?
that is exactly what Frank Hinchliffe was trying to describe when he wrote the instructions, but in reality this sort or arrangement was never the case where washports were concerned.
they were only hinged plates to allow the water out of the deck, but not into the decks........nothing more complicated that that, and to tell the truth on many occasions were taken off because they jammed open or shut more times than not because of rust and decay.
the same was always the case with wash ports on trawlers, and even though Frank used to put "wash port doors" on most of his models as a bit of "overkill" on the fittings side, more often than not, doors were never fitted.
I can state categorically that I have NEVER EVER seen hinged washport doors on a Fleetwood trawler, as they would have snagged the nets when hauling and shooting, and I used to have this discussion regularly with frank when I saw him at shows, but he continued to use them on all his models.
So, if you want to fit the doors, I ( IMHO) wouldn't back them up on the inside once I had made the cut in the bulwarks. in fact if you look at my model of Imara, you can see I left the wash port doors off the boat, and just "barred" them on the inside with brass wire.