Teak Decks

The admiral and myself are*still actively looking at boats -*houseboats, trawlers and now some motor yachts have entered the picture.

Given our budget and what we feel we need in the way of size, we both really liked the 42' Carvers. What we are budgeted for (once our sailboat sells) will be a 42 Carver - mid 1980's. Most of the ones we looked at have teak decks.

Question: Is there a point at which teak decks became less of a problem due to different ways of installation or are they still drilled and screwed to the deck with the inevitable leaking/rotting deck delaminations?

now days they glue them down,if you dont see any plugs then it is posable that they are down with glue

Sorry, mid eightys yo are looking at a thousand screws. BB

Grand Banks changed from screws to glue sometime in the early 2000s I believe. Don't know about other manufacturers but it is a relatively recent development.

A teak deck properly installed to begin with and maintained correctly can have a very long life. Our main deck is now 37 years old and while it has had its problems it is still serviceable with no leaks into the boat. We have had it re-grooved once and re-seamed, and there are seam sections today that need reworking that I get to when I can. The modern seam sealants--- specifically TDS--- are far superior to what was used when we had the deck re-seamed in the late 90s.

Taking care of a teak deck is really no more time consuming that taking care of a fiberglass deck, but there are definite do's and don't do's that a lot of people aren't familiar with. So it's easy to mistreat a teak deck, sometimes not knowing that you are. And a neglected teak deck, or one that was not build all that well to begin with, can really be a problem.

A teak deck is very expensive to replace if you want to replace it with a new teak deck. $20k to $30k were the estimates we got when we looked into it back in the late 90s, which is why we opted to have the deck regrooved and resamed rather than replaced.

Many people with boats with failed teak decks opt to remove the teak and install additional fiberglass layers over the subdeck followed by a non-skid surface. While it's a lot of work if done properly, and very expensive if you don't do most or all of it yourself, it can be a lot more cost-effective than replacing the deck with more teak assuming you like a fiberglass non-skid deck.

I GB just left my marina a beautiful 42' vintage 2002 The decks were screwed down That suprised me

Let's just say this.* A year ago I ordered my trawler with teak decks.* Based on this forum's feedback, I decided to eliminate the installation expense, surface heat, and forever maintenance of such.* Convinced I made the correct decision for me.

Tony,
I have never, ever seen a carver 42, or any carver for that matter, with teak decks. if you are talking about the 4207 Carver I would be shocked to see teak decks and it most certainly would be an after market addition to the boat. The modern stuff that is after market is typically flex teak or plastiteak which are synthetic products and glue down only.

Woodsong

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See link.* http://www.americanyachtsales.com/boats-for-sale/?rPage=/privatelabel/listing/photo_gallery.jsp?slim=pp286064&lang=en&units=Feet&id=2410075&back=/privatelabel/listing/pl_boat_detail.jsp&boat_id=2410075

This one is already sold.

It would have been perfect me including the price.

Too late now though.

*

Tony B

motion30 wrote:
I GB just left my marina a beautiful 42' vintage 2002 The decks were screwed down That suprised me

Click to expand...

I believe GB started gluing their decks down with the most recent models-- GB47 and GB41 as well as Eastbays.* The now-discontinued GB42 was never made with glued down decks to my knowledge.

Tony,
That is literally the first Carver I've seen with teak decks- VERY atypical for them- they almost always have glass decks.
That boat has gas engines. The 4207 is a pretty big boat. I don't know that you would be super happy with that boat and gas engines- very very poor handling and I am not just talking about high fuel burn. You can pick up some of those mid 1980 carvers pretty affordably with diesels these days. But- depending on how you run her, if you could pick up a gaser for $45k you can buy a ridiculous amount of fuel on it instead of paying $85k for a diesel!

None of the stock boats I have seen in the last 40 years has real teak decks, where the deck is created in teak, and requires calking and seam compound to be water tight.

Too heavy , too expensive and too much time and builders skill required.

Most TT have faux teak decks , a thin overlay usually screwed into plywood.

This was done so the dealers could sell a "Teak" upgrade , and the decking could be fabricated in a shop waiting for an order.

While intensive maint can keep some in place , after 20-30 years its most common to shovel them overboard .

********

"That boat has gas engines. "

For this style of boat gas might be preferred , under 200-300 hours a year it should be cheaper to operate , assuming "Da Book" is followed for either gas or diesel.

And then again, some boats that were built in the 80s still have sound teak decks.

I have one of those boats.

FYI, just got back from a cruise on Carnival's newest ship, the Magic. No teak decks. Mostly Plasteak or some similar synthetic material, or just rubberized coatings.

Woodsong wrote:
Tony,
.............very very poor handling and I am not just talking about high fuel burn. .....if you could pick up a gaser for $45k you can buy a ridiculous amount of fuel on it instead of paying $85k for a diesel!

Click to expand...

*I know Carvers are near the bottom of the list when it comes to quality but was not aware of the poor handling characteristics.

After giving some serious thought to future plans based on our*situation and*desires, we probably wont travel more than 1,000 miles per year. *

I finally religated myself to the fact that fuel will be a big expense, having said that, I have a few fuel related questions and comments....

From some previous posts, I am under the impression that larger engines don't consume noticably more fuel than smaller engines if the boat is*run at relatively low speeds - say 6 MPH. I also thought that gas engines consume about 30% more fuel than diesel. I also noticed the great difference in price in the used boat market between gas and diesel engine boats and given that I will be 65 next month, I figured that I will probably be out of the travel/exploring mode before it would make an economical difference to me personally. Is my thinking flawed?

Thanks in advance

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Tony,
For what you are proposing, the Carver is a great boat for it. They typically excel at creating very livable interiors and good layouts with decent systems. Obviously they are not blue water cruisers but neither are 99% of "trawlers." if you are predominately going at hull speed, gasers in a 42 carver will not be too bad. You will have to goose the throttles to get the responsiveness you may sometimes want/need when docking but it is totally doable. Lots of folks have gasers in these boats and reality is that if you fry an engine they are cheap to replace. The biggest issue will be CO monitoring (generator use at night, etc.), some increased fuel burn, and handling. But- like I said earlier, you can buy many, many, many years worth of fuel in the cost differential between gas engines and diesel engine boats. However, with the market being what it is, you can often times get a good diesel boat for the same cost as a gaser if you keep looking. Resale value will be there for a diesel boat as well as increased # of buyers. Reality is that for most boaters, unless serious long term cruisers, cost of fuel is minimal compared to dockage, maintenance, etc. etc. if you are going to be up on plane a lot I would say get diesel but if you are talking hull speed most of the time, 6 GPH with gasers is not much worse than 4 GPH with diesels though you will loose the handling with gas engines but it is all a trade off.

Thanks Tony and everyone else that responded. While most trawlers and motor yachts are going for probably half of what they should be, sailboats are not exactly breaking any sales records either. Mine is in a very competitive price range and still not much interest except with those that want to trade for a pick-up truck or a trailer house. *

This particular one caught my eye based on price and how new the engines looked. The broker said they were probably recently replaced. These are repo boats and the asking price was 45K. No tellin what the actual sales price was.

My main point is that now I am more receptive to gas even though I realize diesel is miles ahead and am no longer intimidated by the larger engines which are potential gas hogs. I sure learned a lot on here in a relatively short period of time.

Thanks again to all.

I've never seen a 4207 with a teak deck and neither has Carver.