I'm going to replace the vinyl on the sun pad and taking a look at the hatch it looks like I have to physically take the entire hatch off to remove the vinyl as the brackets holding the hatch to the deck need to be removed to gain access to remove the vinyl. Am I correct?

yes. it will make life easier. it is heavy. two people minimum to move the cover. good luck. I did mine four years ago.

just got mine back from upholstery..... good luck!

my sunpad was made out of 3 or 4 different rectangle of wood covered with vynil. so I just unscrewed from underneath the hatch each piece, and it was an easy job!

check it out !

There are several seperate sections. You can take all of them off while the hatch is still in place on the boat except the last or rear-most section. Some of the screws for that section are under the hatch hinge. So, at that point you'll need to remove the hatch from the boat then remove the hinges from the hatch. Taking off as many sections of vinyl as you can before removing the hatch makes the hatch lighter.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to tackle that this weekend!