Hatch Repair

[Hooks]

My front hatch is in bad shape and is leaking so it needs repair. I took pics and sent it to a few websites and they all said "Good luck you're on your own".

So my plan was to do the following

1) Break off all the "shedding" fiberglass

2) Replace the seal with whatever I could find

3) Find a handle that works with the latch that's still intact

Does that seem like a good course of action? Any suggestions on what kind of seal to use or where to find a latch handle that will lock it against the seal?

Also I'd like to paint it at some point. Really hate that fiberglass look on the outside of the boat. Any particular paint I should use that won't attract moisture/mildew?

 

[Ross]

Is the surrounding deck solid?
You should do more than "break the shedding glass". You really need to grind back to sound substrate and rebuild from there.

 

[Chief RA]

Don't break off any shedding fiberglass. Coat frayed edges with epoxy resin first to firm it up. Then use mat or even more resin to fill in. Let harden and file it back down to edge shape. Go to Home Depot with a piece of that sealer edging and find a suitable piece to put on. Paint inside and out with a spray can of white epoxy and put on a handle if needed.
Chief

 

[Brian S]

I believe the reason it's been left translucent resin is to allow some light into the cabin. Probably was cheaper to lay up the hatch when doing the rest of the glass work at the factory, than to install a fancy plexiglass hatch. It's fiberglass, you could paint it with just about anything, from acrylic latex to enamel to polyurethane one or 2 part. (BTW, although I know people who paint the interiors of glass boats with ACRYLIC latex paint, no one has yet weighed in that it's as good a long term exterior glass paint the way enamel or poly paint is.) But you might not want to paint it, if you consider ambient light below...

I can't tell what we're looking at in the hatch, maybe some delimitation from below? Also there appears to be a crack in the deck edge.

If the hatch itself is delaminating, and you can get get some thickened epoxy of your choice into the edge and inject in, then you could clamp and maybe be done. If it's just some layers of tape over a crack in the hatch, and the tape is delaminating, I'd probably grind off the tape and start over again like Chief says.

For the crack in the deck edge, if you establish that the deck core (if any) is sound, then you might grind that crack open a bit, and fill with white Marine Tex. Some people open up cracks like that with a "church key," the old style V-shaped can openers, then kind you had to have around before they invented pull tab aluminum beer cans. Yeah, one side is a bottle opener, the other is that V-shaped opener. I know what they are, because my Grandfather used to punch a V hole opposite the pull tab hole on his beer cans so it didn't chug-a-lug so much.

Do you have any books on fiberglass repair? It's starting to sound like you need one for this boat. Don Casey's books seem well regarded.

 

[jibes138]

Epoxy and perhaps other resins are not resistant to UV light and will deteriorate rapidly exposed to the sun like that. It needs to be protected with either gelcoat or paint or a cover or such. I think that is why you are having these difficulties.
They make an adhesive backed foam tape that they use to seal pickup truck bed caps. They seem to work well to keep water out of the truck bed from rain and snow. I've used it to seal a screw type deck cover where the deck was not flat and I needed something as a gap filler. Might be worth a try as the seal for your hatch? http://www.cargogear.com/OneItemInfo.aspx?partnum=MPPRETS

 

[Bob J.]

The forward hatches on Sabre 28 & 30's are made the same way. You could either try to fix the old one up or use the existing hatch for a mold & build a new one.

I've noticed there's only one hatch arm/support on it. When the hatch is open & it catches a breeze it will twist causing a lot of the spider webbing in the fiberglass. No matter what you do, put two hatch hatch arm/supports on.