How to fix leaking hatches?

[Naptown Brian]

The good news is my two hatches aren't leaking where the hatch meets the boat. The bad news is my two hatches are leaking in the seam where the plexiglass meets the hatch. Is there a fix for this? Pry out the glass, replace the gasket and reglue? What?

 

[Morrie]

slicone

I masked mine very carefully so I wouldn't get silicone all over and caulked all joints, inside and out. No leaks since. It's only been about 9 months ago, but I live in Hilo Hawaii, where our average annual rainfall is three-hundred-and-something inches a year. And we had some driving rains (once over 20 inches in a 24 hour period) this winter. If you ever want to find every single one of your leaks just anchor in Hilo Bay for a few months.

 

[Marvin]

Complete reseal

Previous attempts to apply silicone in patch looked poor and one hatch still leaked. I found it best to completely peel-off the plexiglass from the hatch, scrape away all previous silicone from the plexi and from the hatch, then apply a thick bead of new silicone around the entire hatch. Whole project took less than a 1/2 hour.

 

[Bill O'Donovan]

Check one thing

It may indeed be the gaskets to blame. Check to see if they have rounded indents at the corners. When Hunter installed mine, they evidently came up half-an-inch short and simply "rounded off" the corners. The result was insufficient gasket sealing and subsquent leaking. I replaced it with the right length and it worked fine. Of course, I wound up breaking one of the dog extenders in the process and had to pay $50 to replace that, but hey it doesn't leak anymore.