The old hatches that came with some of the O'Day sailboats were prone to break very easy. I don't know of anyone who hasn't had problems with them, me included. Years ago, I accidentally stepped on the lens of my old hatch and broke it. I took the hatch cover to a place called Palco in Whitman Ma. and had the guy cut out a new lens from Lexan. I epoxied it in and have been using it ever since with no problems. This time, one of the plastic mounts that holds the dogs in place was broken on one side, and the mount on the other side was cracking and ready to let go. I was lucky enough to pick up a used hatch from Rudy and be able to make one good hatch out of the two. My friend Wayne gave me a piece of 1/4" Plexiglas which I used for the bottom corners of the frame where the hatch dogs slide on to tighten down. I cut these to fit with my band saw and attached them to each corner with four small bolts and nuts along with Plastic Welder epoxy by Devcon. I also swapped the two lenses out and epoxied my old Lexan lens to the hatch. These hatches come apart very easy as they are held in place with pins that can be banged out with a hammer and pin punch. You need to remove the pins from the right direction as one end of the pins has ridges and the ridge end wants to come out from that end of the hole. If the knobs appear to be frozen due to corrosion, they too can be pulled off the threaded metal inserts. The bolt and insert can be soaked in WD-40 to loosen up. Anyway, I used Dow Corning mastic silicon 795 caulking and reinstalled my rebuilt hatch on my boat. Hopefully it will outlive this old sailor.
Joe
Joe
