Removing headliner panels

The water goes in via the area around the deck hatches. 458 has 4, 460 is likely similar. The fiberglass hull is not rigid and moving all the time. Additional stress comes if you keep the boat on a boatyard, the lift straps are doing this. From what I learned by reading many posts  the hatches are embedded into the hull with some sealant like polyurethane based sika flex. Its somewhat flexible but not sufficient to absorb the micromovements that produce the cracks in the sealant. Also the hatches aluminum frames are covered with some powder which does not stick well to aluminum and this produces additional cracks. There is ton of discussion here about it and how to fix it. Many remove the hatches and rebed them, some buy new hatches, some fight with Lewmar, which manufactures  those hatches. When I got those leaks when the boat was 3 yo, I got boatlife sealant and went over the perimeter of each hatch with it and sealed them. So far so good, no leaks. The marine sealants are polyurethane based, mix of polyurethane and silicon, and silicon based. Boatlife makes all three.  Silicon is the softest, polyurethane is the hardest. I went with the mix of  polyurethane and silicon, forgot how it was branded by Boatlife but its easy to figure out. I decided if this one will crack and leaks return, I would go with Boatlife silicon, but so far so good. 

Edited by marsella - 18 November 2025 at 14:51