Hobie: leaky twist and seal hatch

For anyone else with leaky Hobie kayaks.

I noticed during the pressure soap test that I was getting bubbles from the twist and seal hatches, not where the o-rings are but on the outer flange. So I took them apart and found a lot of sand lodged in there. See pic. I bought some new seals and installed them, no more leaks.....there at least.

On my OK Prowler, I'd lost the 6" hatch cover, and the replacement came with a new flange and seal/gasket, so I replaced the old, and about the 3rd time I took it out, I got a lot of water inside - enough got in via slow leak to submerge the hatch, and then it came in faster.  It turned out that the neoprene gasket wasn't really a seal, even though the flange was held down with multiple bolts, though it took me a lot of investigation to figure that out because I didn't imagine the new gasket would leak.  Solution: Goop the hell out of both sides of the gasket/seal and reinstall - dry ever since.   

Thanks for the info!