cabin top hatch leak . ~ hull #34

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tkoetje
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed May 13, 2015 6:02 pm

cabin top hatch leak . ~ hull #34

Post by tkoetje »

I've been bothered by a slight cabin top hatch leak over the last 4-5 years. I finally took it off to rebed it. The hole in the cabin top is nicely finished off and gel coated through the thickness of the deck, so there is no worry about water ingress into the core (except through the screw holes of course), but I found the cause of the leak, the hatch is just slightly smaller than the hole diagonally, so the corners of the frame don't overlap much more than a 1/4 inch at the center of the radius. Mine had almost no bedding compound on the aft starboard corner, and very little on the other corners. I centered it the best I could and used lifecaulk more thoroughly. Seems to have worked. I have seen the same leak on several of the older boats around here. Somebody messed up the hole and hatch specs in the initial builds anyway.
TSweather
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2017 9:24 pm

Re: cabin top hatch leak . ~ hull #34

Post by TSweather »

Had to get into mine today mainly to rebed the screws holding the sea hood in place. I'm hull #41 and while there is some space in there seemingly to allow the hatch to slide without binding (and a lot of dirt), none of the gaps seemed unusually large. Maybe they had corrected the gap issue by the time ours was built. Overall it's a pretty clever layout that allows water to wash over the hatch before channeling it into the gutters along the side.
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