Dear Leaky Larry,
 |
| Lewmar Ocean Hatch |
You've hit on one of the most common questions that we
receive from customers. Boat hatches of
all manufacturers will eventually start to leak, typically due to one of the
seals going bad with age. Almost all hatch leaking problems can be reduced to
one of four areas. Of course, your leaking hatch may suffer from more than one
of these.
Determining where the leak is, exactly, is step one. The
best time to find the leak is in a down pour or thunder storm. Spraying the
hatch with a hose can find the leak, but sometimes there isn’t a substitute for
Mother Nature when it comes to volume.
With the hatch soaking and hopefully leaking, look to see if the water
is coming through the deck-to-hatch base joint, the handle where it goes
through the hatch, around the lens, or between the hatch base and the lid.
If the handles are leaking, you will need to replace the
o-rings that seal the handle. We can replace these for currently manufactured
hatches. For older hatches, we will carefully remove the handle and o-ring so
that the o-ring stays in one piece (this may not be possible) and we can match
up a new o-ring to the old one and reassemble the handle.
If the seal around the lens is leaking or the lens itself is
cracked and leaking, we can fix both of these situations for you. This is a
good winter project since older hatches may need a custom cut replacement lens.
If the hatch is leaking between the hatch base and the lid,
we can replace the gasket. Once again on older models we may have to order an
aftermarket seal. In most cases this will work, but unfortunately in some cases
the hatch lid or base is bent causing the leak. In some cases, a specialty shop
can straighten the hatch, but often a bent hatch means hatch replacement.
If the leak is coming from in between the deck and the hatch
base, we can remove the hatch, clean off the old sealant and re-mount the hatch
on the deck. It is possible that this joint started leaking due to the hatch
base being bent which as mentioned above may be repairable, but likely means
replacing the hatch.
Leaky Larry, I hope this helps. If you want to attempt any
of the above repair jobs yourself, we’d be happy to walk you through it over
the phone.
Regards,
Andrew
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