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