: I will be putting commercially produced rubber hatches in my Point
: Bennett. They will be recessed as well. As per this post:

:
: http://justyakkin2.blogspot.com/2011/02/all-decked-out-3rd-step.html

: I have the exact same hatches on my plastic boat. There they sealed
: with silicone (or equivalent) and bolted down as well. The
: problem is that my day hatch leaks a bit around the bolt holes -
: no matter how hard I try to seal them!! There are absolutely no
: issues with leakage between the rim and cover.

: The new hatch kits are not drilled for bolts - although the spots
: are marked for them. I'm thinking on just using an adhesive to
: attach the rims.

: My question is whether to use silicone (or equivalent) or epoxy. My
: concern with the epoxy it that it's so darn permanent. If you
: look at the sketch in the link above you will see that I can pop
: the rim into the recess and fill the space with either silicone
: or epoxy for a very neat and well sealed fit!! A black silicone
: would match the rims and be almost invisible in the recess.

: Any suggestions / comments?

Personally I'd not use silicone nor epoxy. Eventually the rims tend to need replacing and using either of these eliminates the chance of doing that. You'll destroy the hatch if you use epoxy and nothing sticks to the residue left from silicone, not even more silicone which might be the problem you're having with the other boat's day hatch. Most of the time these are set in one of the boat caulks that don't use silicone, there are several.

Bill H.