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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: Oval Hatches
Posted By: tom In Response To: Re: Oval Hatches (Robert Woodard)
Date: Saturday, 25 November 2000, at 8:12 p.m.
Hi all,
Having had experience with the hatches on the Valley, NDK, and Gulfstream I would hazard a guess that it is not the hatch cover that is leaking. If I am not mistaken the covers on the Gulfstream and the NDK boats are made by Kajak Sport. It is my experience that the leak is more likely to be from a recessed deck fitting or that not enough caulking was used when the hatch was put in. If you look you will see the hatch cover fits snug, like a Tupperware top, onto the hatch. It can be difficult to determine if in fact it leaks because this hatch did not have enough caulking applied to it when it was secured to the boat. Clean all of the water out of the area you want to check. Take the hatch cover off. With just a bit of water running through your hose flood the area around the hatch. Keep the area flooded with water. Do this for at least 10 min. You need to be very careful not to have the water running high enough to splash water into the area you are checking. As you are running water around the hatch check inside, with a dry hand, where the deck of the boat and the hatch are bonded together. The reason I say for 10 min is that it sometimes takes a bit of time for the leak to begin. Many times on our paddles the area around the hatch gets flooded because it is recessed. I have found a quick check sometimes misses the leak. However, if you run water for 10 min or so it should show up. So far I have found that the hatch cover to the hatch is not the problem. It is the caulking around the hatch, a recessed deck fitting or if in the stern it could be a leak through the skeg box. Once I even found the leak was because of a cracked end pour. If the leak is not enough caulking you can fix this by running a bead of clear caulk on the outside of the boat where the deck and the hatch intersect. I do not know if the VCP or the Kajak Sport hatches hold up longer.
tom
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