It’s still March, and the boat deck hatch weighs a ton.

Like a hat it’s designed to keep the elements at bay. Unfortunately this hatch has absorbed a lot of water through the years.

The gelcoat was badly crazed, and the teak trim split. The hinges were loose.

We pulled the trim off and sanded off the gelcoat. That done we cut the center of the top out. This exposed a lot of rotted, wet delaminated plywood. Along with scored foam. The plan is to retain the foam and replace the plywood. I found plenty of plywood scraps, cut them up and glued them in

However the hatch wanted to take a concave set. It’s going to need some blocking from below in order to have water run off. a bit of resin to hold things together then we can glass over the cut lines. Gelcoat and new trim comes next. I didn’t have a thick enough piece of teak to cut out the trim piece, but I did have enough to glue up the trim in two pieces.

The finished Project. Lighter but still not light!    The Lazerrete hatch has the same problem, very heavy.   I’m  going to rethink replacing  all the plywood which contributes considerable weight when I rebuild that in the future.