Teak decks

Has anyone removed them? According to the web...... GB did not start gluing them til early '90s. '81 going to survey and I would take them off (as they are passed due) and apply nonskid.

Lots of people have removed them. There are many threads here about it. Even if they are not “glued” down they are glued down. The newer models just didn’t have mechanical fasteners like nail or screws. If you remove them I would lay down some new fiberglass and then paint with a nonskid like Kiwigrip.

Our 2001 Europa 52-23 has the teak deck screwed down. Don't know about adhesive under it, but plenty of screws are showing their faces!

Teak deck threads

I would hazard a guess that threads on T.F. regarding teak decks almost rival the never ending threads on anchors ?

And there are 2 or 3 on anchors…

I removed teak on an IG 36 Europa of similar age. Sides and cockpit were partly protected so fresh teak there, but exposed bow section was done in painted non skid over 2 layers of f/g, just one layer elsewhere.
An important issue at pre purchase survey is potential leakage consequences below the failing teak, incl the actual deck, tanks, etc.
Surprising GB was screwing down teak in 2001. I was saved considerable repair expense by my 1981 build teak being laid over a foam core sandwich, instead of the more usual then,ply or teak offcuts.

Maybe I am confusing the search function with too much detail as I am looking to remove and glass and nonskid. Search came back nothing found. So most likely oprrator error. Boat is in Chesapeake VA. Survey on the 28th. Engine and genset on the 29th. I will attempt myself but stuff happens. Next spring we are off to loop.

Old Sea Dog said:

I will attempt myself but stuff happens. Next spring we are off to loop.

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I took about 2' of my decks off and "stuff happened" My checkbook mysteriously flew open.

Old Sea Dog said:

Maybe I am confusing the search function with too much detail as I am looking to remove and glass and nonskid. Search came back nothing found. So most likely oprrator error. Boat is in Chesapeake VA. Survey on the 28th. Engine and genset on the 29th. I will attempt myself but stuff happens. Next spring we are off to loop.

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It isn’t too hard technically, just hard physically. Basically rip the teak off the best way you can figure out. Then cut the glass deck in the areas that have bad core. Dig out the bad core and replace the core with something like Coosa board setting it in with thickened epoxy, I wouldn’t do plywood because it can rot again. Then lay the old fiberglass deck back on with thickened epoxy and weight it down until the epoxy sets up. Then I would grind a shallow trough along the cuts in the fiberglass and lay in a layer or two of 1708 glass to reinforce the cut. Then lay a layer or two of 1708 over the whole deck, depending on how much strength you lost by removing the teak decking. Do a rough fairing and paint with Kiwigrip. Kiwigrip will hide small imperfections in the finish so it is great for this application. You won’t have to spend nearly as much time fairing the fiberglass compared to painting with other paints. After it is all done and the Kiwigrip is good and dry, wax it with Woody Wax. Kiwigrip can be aggressive if you want it to be and it will trap dirt so the Woody Wax makes it much easier to keep clean and it isn’t slippery after it dries. It is very slippery when you first apply it so be careful walking on it when it is still wet.

Kiwigrip is what I would go with. I have an email in to James Taylor at Atlantic Yacht in Chesapeake so we will see. I would like to think I could tackle removing the teak. I did not feel any soft spots. The teak is down to about 1/4" with some places thinner. Hoping to cut into the labor bill.

Removing the old teak is just grunt work, figuring out the easiest method for your particular boat. If the core isn’t soft then it is pretty easy to finish it up. Patch any holes and maybe lay some 1708 if needed then fair and paint. Well within most DIYers capabilities.

Fortunately, I instructed the builder to not install teak decks. Used the savings to purchase loud air horns.

Had the privilege of maintaining teak decks on an 81' Trumpy for several years. Came with the mates job. Along with varnish and paint. And then there were the 12/71s and 2 gen sets. Had a great time. 'Course I was a little younger then.
The Cal 2-27 was my first liveaboard in Annapolis MD. Chilly during the winter.

My teak decks were left on because they were structural, but the entire thing was coated with elastomeric. Then painted with sand mixed in. It was perfect!

Mako, Do you hav pictures of what it looks like painted?

JimL

Jim I’d have to dig through photo albums. Basically though, the elastomeric coating was thick and strong and rubberized (flexes) and 100% effective. The grey color was ugly. So I painted a tan enamel paint on it with sand mixed in. Held up for years.

Years ago there was a guy that sprayed truck bed liner on his teak decks. He wrote an article in PMM about it. I talked to him years later and he said that the bed liner was holding up very well.

Thanks - now you both have me thinking about other options!

JimL

Comodave said:

Years ago there was a guy that sprayed truck bed liner on his teak decks. He wrote an article in PMM about it. I talked to him years later and he said that the bed liner was holding up very well.

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Resulting in hot decks?

markpierce said:

Resulting in hot decks?

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I didn’t do it so I don’t know, look up the article and read it.

Here is a link to that article by Charles Culotta.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=682701&postcount=27

He was. I think, the first guy in N America to try pickup bedliner on his teak decks to stop leaks. We tried this last year on our decks, as a stopgap measure to buy some time before taking more permanent measures. I chatted with Charles several times. He said his boat was still leak free after 10 years, at which time he sold it. He paid a lot of attention to the surface prep. The Durabak polyurethane bedliner he used is available now in a transparent version, which is what we used. and can be rolled and painted on. I hope our beat up an-teak deck lasts half as well as his. So far so good, and it looks nice, in its beat up way. I regard it as a sort of emergency temporary fix at best.

Mako said:

My teak decks were left on because they were structural, but the entire thing was coated with elastomeric. Then painted with sand mixed in. It was perfect!

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My aft deck is all teak and last year I re-caulked and sanded down to new wood. It came out very nice. I do not think the teak had ever been sanded but here is another option if your decks are leaking. Mine were not but the caulk clearly needed to be renewed. If they were leaking I would seriously consider the product I am about to describe.

It is a liquid sealer made by Semco, not the Semco stuff that is like varnish but another product by a company named Semco (semcoworks.com). Semco call its a liquid membrane and represents that it can be used on concrete basement floors, concrete swimming pools, tile, and wood. I just sealed the basement floor in our newly-built home. This stuff is amazing. It is water based so easy cleanup. Roll or brush it on. It cures quickly to a rock hard surface and seals completely. Requires two coats. Use on a leaking teak deck and leaks be gone. I would have thought the surface would be slippery but it is not. A sand mix can be added for more traction. It is very easy to apply as opposed to kiwigrip.

Guys, take a look. I think this product will pique the interest of a few of you. There is no doubt that this is the product I would use to rehab a leaking deck absent a tear-out. One gallon costs about $110 and covers 200-250 square feet, two coats.

I think Kiwigrip is very easy to apply, but I would not put it over teak decks. Wrong product for that application. Kiwigrip is great on fiberglass decks.

I am tied up between two boats that have great teak. One, a CL 37, has the most perfect varnish of any in our club. The owner does it. His brightwork is so perfect that I told him he can't tie near me. He took it well.
The other has a Sonship 58 with minimal teak. His cockpit rails are done by the other guy, so are perfect. In return, he does his own and the other guy's teak decks, with Semco "natural". I discovered this when I was standing, barefoot, on his deck and asked what it was, thinking it was one of the synthetic teak products, but when I stood on the synthetic teak deck on a different 58 Sonship, it was unbearably hot. His weren't. He explained what he had and what he used on it.
I will be trying that product. It works!

Thanks for the Semco link cj. This is definitely worth considering. There are a few end edges that need to be refastened. Once that is accomplished I could clean and use the Semco elastomeric sealer. That could buy me some time before the inevitable. Plus have some funds for electronics updates.

Removed mine. 44' Marine Trader Tri-Cabin

My teak was bedded in a rubber compound and screwed down. The screws mostly had to be turned out with vice grips after prying off the teak with hammer and those 2 inch wide flat pry bars, sometimes resorting to hammer and chisel, when unable to catch an edge of the teak otherwise. Cleaning off the rubber bedding was mostly angle grinder with the metal sanding flap discs.

Removal is best done from scaffolding of some sort so standing leaning in, but also on deck with a stool and padding to lean your chest on so to work with both hands.

Crunch time is a careful survey of the deck when clean to fiberglass with a tapping hammer. A steel hammer is not tuned for the job. With a little practice you can map soft core, sketching it out with marker as you go.

Cut out sections of skin where needed leaving an inch or inch and a half intact next to the walls that will have to be dug out from the side, painful, but that lip is needed for strength in the rebuild. Don't bother with long lifts of skin, keep them to 18 inches or so with cross members left joining side to side and being 2 inches wide, and relatively easy to clean under and wet out when you get to it. Clean up the removed skins of all adhesives and sand them to make ready of top and bottom fiber glassing. I prepped my skins with holes to allow air to escape when put back in place. I.e. resin will ooze up from the holes if all is well.

I used balsa core and glass layers/resin above and below to fill the void, leaving room for one final glass layer/resin to accept the skin. The balsa sheets have the advantage of being really easy to size to the void using only a blade. And, they wet out thoroughly so are not going to rot in any relevant lifetime. Anyway, the water is not going to get to the core with a sealed top. I find the result strong and firm so options that might theoretically be better engineering solutions may be overkill, outside the side decks that might be a real consideration.

Did I mention all the sanding this all entails.

I am finishing with a layer of heavy fiberglass over the whole deck before moving on to the coatings for finish and non-slip.

My 37 sundeck boat had fiberglass deck soft spots. The solution would have been to remove the top fiberglass layer, dig out the rotted balsa, replace the core and re-glue the carefully cut out fiberglass onto the new core. I note this because cored fiberglass decks also have issues.


Cosmetically, the re-glued fiberglass wouldn't have been pretty. A cosmetic solution could have been a new wood topping over the repaired fiberglass sandwich: i.e. add wood rather than remove it.



We sold the boat before I got to any of this.



If there is a way to salvage and seal that teak deck, I'd be looking at it, since cored fiberglass also has issues.


There's a stain I've been using on my wood docks and pontoon boat deck made by a company called Boodge. I have to reapply it every couple of years, but there's virtually no prep required and the reapplication takes less than an hour. If I had a teak boat deck, I'd consider this stain.

Old Sea Dog said:

Has anyone removed them? According to the web...... GB did not start gluing them til early '90s. '81 going to survey and I would take them off (as they are passed due) and apply nonskid.

Click to expand...

I am removing mine from a GB36 1973 model. There is what looks like polysulphide (black) beneath, also with (believe it or not) duct tape. I really don't know what the duct tape is all about. I tried a few different methods and settled on a hammer a 3' ply bar. Just ripping them up and rip the screws out. I am in an unusual circumstance ( I was in the industrial coatings business and we sand blasted and coated steel & concrete structures) so I am going to try sand blasting the glass afterwards to see if that is easier/better than grinding. I will post something when that happens. Good luck, it just comes down to a lot of crappy work no matter how you approach it.

BDalt, I’m exhausted and sweating and my arms ache, just reading your post of the work to be done!

BDalt said:

My teak was bedded in a rubber compound and screwed down. The screws mostly had to be turned out with vice grips after prying off the teak with hammer and those 2 inch wide flat pry bars, sometimes resorting to hammer and chisel, when unable to catch an edge of the teak otherwise. Cleaning off the rubber bedding was mostly angle grinder with the metal sanding flap discs.

Removal is best done from scaffolding of some sort so standing leaning in, but also on deck with a stool and padding to lean your chest on so to work with both hands.

Crunch time is a careful survey of the deck when clean to fiberglass with a tapping hammer. A steel hammer is not tuned for the job. With a little practice you can map soft core, sketching it out with marker as you go.

Cut out sections of skin where needed leaving an inch or inch and a half intact next to the walls that will have to be dug out from the side, painful, but that lip is needed for strength in the rebuild. Don't bother with long lifts of skin, keep them to 18 inches or so with cross members left joining side to side and being 2 inches wide, and relatively easy to clean under and wet out when you get to it. Clean up the removed skins of all adhesives and sand them to make ready of top and bottom fiber glassing. I prepped my skins with holes to allow air to escape when put back in place. I.e. resin will ooze up from the holes if all is well.

I used balsa core and glass layers/resin above and below to fill the void, leaving room for one final glass layer/resin to accept the skin. The balsa sheets have the advantage of being really easy to size to the void using only a blade. And, they wet out thoroughly so are not going to rot in any relevant lifetime. Anyway, the water is not going to get to the core with a sealed top. I find the result strong and firm so options that might theoretically be better engineering solutions may be overkill, outside the side decks that might be a real consideration.

Did I mention all the sanding this all entails.

I am finishing with a layer of heavy fiberglass over the whole deck before moving on to the coatings for finish and non-slip.

Click to expand...

In reference to cleaning out underneath the 2" sections left near the wall and bulwarks, I used a 4" chainsaw type disk on a grinder. I bought the disks and chains on Amazon. They work great for getting under that lip and removing material. CAUTION: these things will tear you up BADLY if you are not very careful. It is after all a chain saw blade. Be sure and use the handle that I have seen so many guys remove (and have done myself). Go slow, think about what you are GOING to do and what you ARE doing. Don't take ANY risks and they work great. Here's a link. https://www.amazon.com/Carving-Grin...430143&sprefix=4+chainsaw+disk,aps,137&sr=8-4