OK to sit on hatch in front of seat?

Hi,

There is a 3" long crack in my '07 Oasis' hull (top surface) starting at the Left Rear Hatch Screw (7:30 "clock" position) on the Rear Hatch.

I've only had one other person in the rear seat on one occasion, and she weighed a lot less than I do (I weigh 185 lbs.) and so I can't imagine why this crack would have appeared.

I try not to "drop" my rear too heavily onto the hatch, but I do sit there often when I am entering/leaving the kayak, installing or uninstalling pedals, sail, Sidekick, etc.

I have never seen anything on the Hobie website indicating that a person shouldn't sit on the hatch, and so I have assumed that this was OK to do. Is it?

Jerry

Don't know, but I've sat and stood on the hatches. So far, no problem. I've felt the hatches and mounts were pretty tough.

It might be a good idea to remove the hatch and look for any unnevenness , warpage or plastic shaving in the underlying area that could explain it.

If the crack is on top of the hatch surface but not on the inside it is highly unlikely it was from sitting on it. If it was from sitting on it the crack would first appear on the inside surface as that is where the stress would be concentrated.

My description above isn't clear...the actual crack is in the rotomolded blue hull (top surface). The above just describes the origin of the crack...at the screw hole in the 7:30 position. I was surprised because the dealer here has an older demo/rental kayak of the same model that has probably been thru hell and back and shows no sign of cracking there. Maybe just a freak weak point, bubble in the molding process, who knows? when mine was rotomolded. Hobie contacted me today and is going to take care of it...I was just curious if other people used the hatch to sit on sometimes, also.