Gero,

a picture might be useful to see what you are talking about.

that said, making a new spacer and sill is not very complex and i have done this for several hatches that were customized for the boats i was making.

at this point, if you have the hatch cut out, you have sort of defacto determined the dimensions of the spacer  and the sill.  the spacer is typically 1 inch wide from the tracing of the hatch opening (hatch opening inside line).  and the sill is 3/4 inch inch inside (to accomodate the foam gasket) the line plus 1 inch outside the the line (to line it up with the width of the spacer).

the space can easily be made of multiple pieces.  the sill is best done with one piece but can also be done with seperate pieces if you glass both sides of the sill.

you may be able to salvage the the original sill and spacers or most of it depending on how off it is from the hatch opening.

no panic....if you like your hatch you have nothing to worry about....all this is under the deck and does not really matter.  you just have a little more work, perhaps, to get it set-up vs what you were hoping.

howard

Howard,

thanks for the response.  I went back out and did some further trimming of the spacer that came with the kit and I think I can make it work.  With the Shearwater, you don't have the luxuriy of 1" of spacer width - I'm down to just under 1/4 inch as it has to be beveled to match the shear panels.

I will make sure there is sufficient epoxy when I put it together, and hopefully the underdeck glassing will help to beef it up.

Gero

���You are on the right track. On the SWS the sides of the spacer and sill are very narrow. As you already stated, fit them to the shear panels. They should also be almost flat if you positioned them correctly.