By Kevin

We like to keep water out of the boat. One of the several ways water liked to get below decks on Real Life when we bought it was via the old, crusty Bomar hatches. We replaced all five hatches with brand new ones delivered straight from the factory.

The two that were bedded directly onto fiberglass risers went on very easily and have been no problem. Well, the fiberglass around the galley hatch did get damaged when the hatch was removed. But, some putty and paint will fix that up.

Unfortunately, three of our hatches were bedded directly onto beautiful teak risers. (Risers are bumps or frames that encircle the hole in the deck that the hatch covers. They keep water from spilling into the hole when the hatch is open.) When these hatches were removed, the teak split and splintered.

The contractor that was installing them had to build new teak risers. For the first attempt (yes, there was more than one), he just screwed/glued the teak frames onto the deck, using the screws and glue to bend the frame to the camber of the deck. Of course, this caused them to all leak badly.

We had to call in another contractor, John Francis Shipwright Services (954) 326-4145, to fix them properly. It took several weeks but now we have beautiful new teak frames around our beautiful new hatches. 

There were two tricks required to do the job correctly. The first was that instead of bending the frames the the camber of the deck, the frames needed to be routed out to follow the camber. Secondly, lots of 5200 was used in order to permanently adhere the frames to the deck.