Sierra Marine GSS62750 Stainless Gas Spring 50 lb

When a hatch won't stay up on its own, you need a gas spring that can take the salt and keep working season after season. The Sierra Marine GSS62750 is a stainless steel gas spring rated for 50 pounds of force. It's built to hold marine hatches, lids, and engine covers open so they don't drop on your hands while you're buried elbow-deep in a locker. Compressed, it measures 11 inches. Extended, it reaches 17 inches. That's a 6 inch stroke to work with, which suits a lot of the small-to-mid hatches you'll find on center consoles, bowriders, and cuddy cabins.

Here's the thing about gas springs. The force rating isn't the weight of the lid, it's the push the strut delivers along its shaft. Before you buy, weigh the hatch or lid you want to hold up, and figure out where the strut will mount relative to the hinge. A 50 pound spring that sits close to the hinge has less mechanical advantage than one mounted farther out, so geometry matters as much as the rating. If your lid is heavy and the mounting point is tight to the pivot, you may need two springs sharing the load rather than one.

The stainless steel body is the reason to reach for this one instead of a plain steel strut. Salt air and sun are hard on hardware, and a plated-steel spring will rust at the rod where the seal rides, then start leaking gas and losing force. Stainless holds up far longer. Rinse it with fresh water when you wash the boat, keep the rod clean, and it'll keep its lift for years instead of months. No strut lasts forever out in the weather, but this one buys you real time.

Mounting is straightforward if you take your time. Most gas springs of this size use ball-stud ends, so match your ball studs to the sockets and thread-lock every bolt that goes into fiberglass or an aluminum bracket. Vibration on the water backs hardware out faster than you'd think. Check the alignment at full extension before you trust it. The rod should run straight through its travel with no side load or binding, because a strut that's cocked at an angle wears its seal early and fails ahead of its time. A small dab of grease on the ball sockets keeps them quiet.

A single strut works fine on lighter lids and smaller hatches. On a wide engine cover or a long lazarette lid, a single spring can let the lid twist or rack over time, so a lot of folks run a pair, one on each side, for even lift. This GSS62750 is sold as a single, so order two if you're doing a two-strut setup or replacing both sides at once. And if your old lid used to rattle, add a couple of rubber bumpers where it closes. The spring holds it open, the bumpers keep it quiet.

One more honest note. Gas springs lose a little push in the cold. If you boat in the shoulder seasons or store the boat somewhere that gets a hard freeze, test the hatch in cold weather before you count on it holding. That's true of every gas strut, not just this one. For most boaters running spring through fall, the 50 pound rating gives you a solid, dependable hold.

What isn't it for? Big, heavy hatches that need more than 50 pounds of hold, or anywhere you need a mechanical lock-open detent. This is a straight gas spring, so it holds by pressure alone. For a livewell lid, a small anchor locker, a battery box, a rod locker, or a modest engine cover, though, it's right in the wheelhouse. Measure twice, weigh the lid, mount it square, and it'll do its job quietly for a long time. It's a simple part that makes a daily annoyance disappear, and doing it in stainless means you won't be back under the hatch next season with a rusted, leaking strut in your hand.