teak decks leak

Scary said:

I just installed a Mahogany deck that should have been Teak but the boat owner didn't want to pay the price of teak. Oh well he'll pay the price soon enough. I installed this deck over glassed plywood. This is on a custom sailboat so the bottom of the deck is painted. I glued the strips of Mahogany down with epoxy using dive wights and five gallon buckets filled with water to hold it in place. No fasteners penetrating the deck. What a chore. The owner is planing to keep the deck varnished. Current prices for rough teak is upwards of $25 per board ft before machining. Mahogany is is in the $5.30 per bdft range.

Click to expand...

You have got to be kidding me! A mahogany deck that he is going to varnish? Talk about throwing good money after bad. Hope his insurance is up to date for the slip and fall soon to come.

What can I say

Capt.Bill11 said:

You have got to be kidding me! A mahogany deck that he is going to varnish? Talk about throwing good money after bad. Hope his insurance is up to date for the slip and fall soon to come.

Click to expand...

Some people take advice, some don't. There's a saying I believe by Will Rodgers( Some people learn from a book, others from observation, the rest of use have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves) Several people including myself advised against using Mahogany. The sticker shock of teak strip made the decision for him. There is about a weeks labor milling Mahogany, straightening rails, building pads for hardware, refitting hardware laying out and laying the the 2" strip in epoxy, sanding and fairing the deck and coating with penetrating epoxy. There will be another couple of days caulking and at least 8 hours spread over 10 days applying varnish. If he fails to maintain that deck it will all fail and that deck will have to be chipped off and the deck ground to start over. Sometimes you have to your head down and give the man what he asked for.

Not sure I see the problem with a varnished mahogany deck other than it will be slippery. Chris Craft, Hacker Craft, Gar Wood, etc. all used mahogany decks on their boats. In fact more often than not the entire boat was made of mahogany.

I don't think a varnished deck is the smartest solution for a cruising or sailboat deck where you have to walk around on the decks a lot. But good deck shoes can cope with a wet, varnished deck pretty well, or so I've been told by the people we've met who have varnished decks. Bare feet can cope even better.

Growing up in Hawaii, I went out sometimes on a friend's 40' sloop and it had a varnished mahogany deck (the whole boat was made of mahogany). It wasn't a problem in terms of traction, and in the rough water in Hawaii the decks were always wet. But we always went barefoot.

Keeping the varnish in good shape in that climate was a whole other deal, but that wasn't my problem.

I took the first photo several years ago. This boat has since sold but is still on our dock. The family that now owns it uses it regularly. The varnish is pretty shot, particularly on the foredeck. But it's been that way for some six or seven years now and the wood and deck seams seem to be holding up just fine so far. Obviously if the owners let it continue this way the wood will eventually start to have problems.

I took the second photo at a Chris Craft rendezvous in the south Sound. This boat lives in a boathouse which reduces maintenance greatly. At the time I talked to them, the owners used it regularly for cruises in the Sound.

If you say so. But based on my experience with varnished mahogany decks on a Riva Venetian water taxi, I'll pass on varnished decks. Of any kind of wood.

To my mind , none of the decks described are Teak Decks, they are teak overlays of some sort.

On a real Teak Deck the teak IS the deck, not a form of trim applique to a deck of some sort.

Heavier and more expensive to install, but the value goes to the owners over the decades , as they can be maintained and rot far less than plywood.

I know of a number of folks that scraped up the teal paint hob , and laid down glass to end the leaks.
Two folks put down a core and glassed over to be able to operate offshore.

So far I know of no one that installed a REAL TEAK deck on a rebuild.

FF said:

To my mind , none of the decks described are Teak Decks, they are teak overlays of some sort.

On a real Teak Deck the teak IS the deck, not a form of trim applique to a deck of some sort.

Heavier and more expensive to install, but the value goes to the owners over the decades , as they can be maintained and rot far less than plywood.

I know of a number of folks that scraped up the teal paint hob , and laid down glass to end the leaks.
Two folks put down a core and glassed over to be able to operate offshore.

So far I know of no one that installed a REAL TEAK deck on a rebuild.

Click to expand...

You mean you don't know anybody who has taken their fiberglass boat and rebuilt it as a woody? Imagine that.

Talk about reverse engineering

Capt.Bill11 said:

You mean you don't know anybody who has taken their fiberglass boat and rebuilt it as a woody? Imagine that.

Click to expand...

Real teak decks leak. Imagine stoning real teak deck and caulking with oakum and hot tar or pitch every few months. I hear rhe boss now when she sees little blobs of tar on the light carpet, opps did I say carpet.

Now here are some teak decks...real teak decks. Kindda nice to have a crew for maintenance. Me, I will forgo the teak decks, I want a mechanically inclined engine room dwarf, midget, little person or what ever the most politically correct term of the week is.

Battleship USS Missouri, Mighty Mo BB-63, Holystoning


Also....
Teak Deck of the Battleship Missouri docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Mule said:

I want a mechanically inclined engine room dwarf, midget, little person or what ever the most politically correct term of the week is.http://gohawaii.about.com/od/oahuphotos/ig/Battleship-Missouri-Photos/battleship_missouri_007.htm

Click to expand...

I agree. I've always said you could make good money with a crew of trained Little People as mechanics and technicians.

I used a product called Www.grizzlygrio.com It comes in a bunch of colors and has worked well for the last five years. I went right over the teak decks and it came out very nice.

Note to self

Note to self, "Little People" is the term...got it.

Well this week at least.

Mule said:

Note to self, "Little People" is the term...got it.

Click to expand...

Is this what we're talking about?

Well yes. But hopefully with less beer and fists and more wrenches and working.

Hey, pick on someone ur own size........ugggg, I am.....

Mule said:

I want a mechanically inclined engine room dwarf, midget, little person or what ever the most politically correct term of the week is.

Click to expand...

Trivia of the week:

During WWII, Boeing hired midgets (not the same thing as a dwarf, by the way) to work inside the wings of B-17s and B-29s and other tight places inside the planes.

The famous scene in the movie Casablanca, at the end when the girl leave on the plane and Humphrey Bogart stays behind, was filmed on a tiny sound stage. Casablanca was never intended to become a hit movie. It was considered a B-movie by the studio, and Humphrey was ordered to be in it as punishment for getting too uppity with the studio bosses. So the movies was done on a very low budget.

According to the assistant director who explained this in a documentary I saw, the sound stage was so small that for the "airport" scenes they built a half-scale "plane" for the scenes that have the plane in the background. The plane looked like crap, of course, so to cover this they blew a bunch of fog across in front of it. Then to make the scene more believable to the audience, they made some small pieces of "freight" and had some midgets loading them into the "plane" during the scenes. So the whole thing, while it was only a fifteen or twenty feet behind the actors in the foreground, looked to be the correct size and distance away.

This is Angelin Pedra. It is a brownish wood from Northeast Brazil with the same physical specs of teak but different color.
This wood is now pretty much in use bellow the equator

Greetings,
Mr. P. Nice looking wood. I wonder how it compares to teak as far as price and availability in the US. Anybody know? I've never heard of the species before. OK, looked it up. It IS available but couldn't find comparative prices....

Mr RT
In Brazil this is a much known wood. It is used to build from ceiling structures to windows and doors. They also use it for swimming pool decks. I don't know how they call it outside of Brazil but I saw a 35 y.o boat deck that spends every single day in the tropical sunlight and it is perfect. No damage at all! Apart from that, it accepts glue and it is not very kind with nails or screws.

Damn, that is one fine looking boat!