: Good day,

: Last night I was doing some of the details of my hatch, and my suspicions
: were correct about the foam tape pushing up the hatch cover well past the
: point of being flush. In fact, with the bungee pressure the inside edge is
: almost flush with the outside deck. I read and reread Nick’s book and it
: doesn’t appear to say anything about leaving a trough in the hatch lip or
: on the cover for the foam tape. I probably should’ve suspected this when
: making the lip and used the sacraficial foam tape for creating the recess
: (I’ll try the Valclav method next time as per the other hatch posts
: today), but I was trusting the book would address this in a later step.
: I might try sanding down the hatch cover to remove thickness there, and maybe
: cut the tape thinner. I was hoping the tape would compress more than it
: does. The boat is almost complete, so I don’t think it is possible to make
: another hatch lip, and I’m too frustrated now to re-do anything that
: intense. Perhaps a screw down hatch retainer may compress it more than the
: bungees I have now and give it a better seal. How thin can the hatch tape
: be and still give a decent seal? Any help or ideas are very much
: appreciated.

: Thanks James

I did the exact same thing that you did. The temporary solution with silicone works ok. I layed some plastic wrap on the lip and put a bead of silicone on. Then folded the plastic wrap over and put the hatch on.